"In the interviews, she also called civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. "terrible," "tricky" and "a phony."
Jackie Kennedy: Martin Luther King Jr. "phony" - CBS News
Jackie Kennedy: Martin Luther King Jr. "phony" - CBS News
Is this why the government hounded Reverend King?
- Thread starter lonesomebob
- Start date
There's old news and ancient news Bob. She was an immature woman in her thirties thrust into the limelight. We are all a product of our upbringing to a greater or lesser degree. My Father-in-law still refers to black as nignogs on occasion and is quite racist although he is an educated man.
Times have thankfully changed.
Actually Bob, come to think of it, you often seem to post something incendiary and then sit back and wait to see who bites on your lure.
You are a troll. It's as simple as that.
The point being, this "immature woman in her thirties thrust into the limelight" was highly influenced by her husband, the President of the United States. I believe that was the attitude of the Kennedys.
We also know that the Clintons often used the N-word behind not so closed doors.
Graham, I don't sit back. I find things of interest in the news, post them, and discuss them with whoever finds interest in the subject.
We also know that the Clintons often used the N-word behind not so closed doors.
Graham, I don't sit back. I find things of interest in the news, post them, and discuss them with whoever finds interest in the subject.
Interesting in the way that it gives you a chance to moan about Democrats?
Bob, trust me, get a life.
Jeff Young
GT40s Supporter
The Kennedys were being told by J. Edgar Hoover a number of inaccuracies about Dr. King (communist party sympathizer, etc.) and some unflattering accuracies (womanizing).
That is, according to Schlesinger, the course of a man of the unfavorable opinions of Dr. King some in the Kennedy administration had.
Note that this was in the earlier days of the Civil Rights movement when the political and social balance in the South was a mess, and the fear of a black/white civil war very high.
That is, according to Schlesinger, the course of a man of the unfavorable opinions of Dr. King some in the Kennedy administration had.
Note that this was in the earlier days of the Civil Rights movement when the political and social balance in the South was a mess, and the fear of a black/white civil war very high.
Pat
Supporter
Jeff, I grew up in the South, in the '50s and no we did not fear a black/white civil war any more than someone in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles or San Francisco would have.
I think your regional biases are getting the better of you. Just for the record, in the 1960's here are the documented racial riots. Count how many are in the South versus the North.
• 1962 - Ole Miss riot 1962, September 30, The University of Mississippi
• 1964 - Harlem race riot, July 18–23 (New York City, United States)
• 1964 - 1964 Race Riots, July 21-August 2 and September 3 (Singapore)
• 1964 - Rochester 1964 race riot, July 24–25 (Rochester, New York, United States)
• 1964 - Jersey City 1964 race riot,[9] August 2–4 (Jersey City, New Jersey, United States)
• 1964 - Elizabeth 1964 race riot,[9] August 11–13 (Elizabeth, New Jersey, United States)
• 1964 - Dixmoor 1964 race riot[9] August 16–17 (Chicago, Illinois, United States)
• 1964 - Philadelphia 1964 race riot August 28–30
• 1965 - Watts Riot, August 1965, (Los Angeles, California, United States)
• 1966 - Division Street Riots, June 12–14 (Humboldt Park, Chicago, United States)
• 1966 - Hough Riots, July 1966 (Cleveland, Ohio, United States)
• 1966 - Hunter's Point Riot (San Francisco, California, United States)
• 1966 - Benton Harbor Riot, August–September 1966 (Benton Harbor, Michigan, United States)
• 1966 - Atlanta riot of 1966, Sep. 6 (Atlanta, Georgia, United States)
• 1967 - Tampa Riots of 1967, June 1967 (Tampa, Florida, United States)
• 1967 - Buffalo riot of 1967, June 27 (Buffalo, New York, United States)
• 1967 - 1967 Newark riots, July 12–18, 1967 (Newark, New Jersey, United States)
• 1967 - 1967 Plainfield riots, July 14–20, 1967 (Plainfield, New Jersey, United States)
• 1967 - 12th Street Riot, July 23-27, 1967 (Detroit, Michigan, United States)
• 1968 - 1968 Washington, D.C. riots, April 1968 (Washington, D.C., United States)
• 1968 - Baltimore riot of 1968, April 6–12 (Baltimore, Maryland, United States)
• 1968 - Chicago riot of 1968 April 7–14 (Chicago, Illinois, United States)
• 1968 - Kansas City riot of 1968, April 1968 (Kansas City, Missouri, United States)
• 1968 - Louisville riots of 1968, May 27, (Louisville, Kentucky, United States)
• 1968 - Glenville Shootout, (Cleveland, Ohio, United States)
Race relations are, and have been a national issue and the South is certainly not alone in a history of segregation, hate and prejudice. I also don't see any Northern or Western cities as historical models of racial harmony. This is everybody's issue and everyone owns personal and collective solutions.
As far as Dr. King goes, on October 10, 1963, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation to begin wiretapping the telephones of Dr. King. Kennedy believed that one of King's closest advisers was a top-level member of the American Communist Party. Remember this was shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the “Red Scare” of the 1950’s and the escalating tensions of the Cold War. The paranoia around anything “Red” was intense.
Two FBI informants —Jack and Morris Childs—set the investigation in motion. They revealed that Stanley David Levison, a white New York lawyer and businessman who first met Dr. King in 1956 was a very close confident of Dr. King. The FBI knew from the Childs brothers, that Levison had secretly served as one of the top two financiers for the Communist Party USA in the years just before he met King. The Childs brothers' direct contact with Levison from the mid-1940s to 1956 was sufficiently credible to generate an investigation. The Bureau hypothesized that someone with Levison's secret record service to the CPUSA might very well not have turned up at Martin Luther King's elbow by accident. Robert Kennedy and his aides felt they had little choice but to assume the worst and act as defensively as possible. The Kennedy Administration kept itself at arm's length from Dr. King, undertaking extensive electronic surveillance of Dr. King personally. While other issues were mentioned, he was subsequently cleared of any suspicion of communist ties.
Gravy, you and your ilk habitually accuse Conservatives of being racist. I'm pointing out the grand history of your side, the Party Of Robert Byrd, Grand Statesman of the Democratic Party for fifty years.
Jeff Young
GT40s Supporter
I grew up in the South in the 70s and 80s. And spent a large portion of my college years studying the Civil Rights movement, which is one of the greatest nonviolent revolutions in modern history in my view.
Yes, absolutely, there was fear of widespread, widescale violence in the South. In the south, the National Guard and the police were used against black protesters and, fortunately for all of us, MOST of the African-American leadership believed in non-violent resistance to Jim Crow and change through non-violent means. But there are reasons that federal troops were sent to the South.
I certainly agree that race relations in the North and other parts of the country were never perfect. At the same time, Southerners (and I count myself as own) who have taken to this revisionist history about Jim Crow and segregation and how it "wasn't that bad" or was "the same in the North" are living in a fantasy world.
Blacks in the South could not vote. They could not eat at white restaurants, or sit in movie theaters with whites or drink from the same water fountains. African Americans in the South were on a far too frequent subjected to vigilante violence. They were used a guinea pigs for sterlization experiments, and for testing for example the untreated course of syphilis.
So I'm not sure what your point is. If the idea is that things were not perfect in the North, I agree. If your idea is that there was some sort of equivalency between race relations in the North and the South, OR that the South was not a powderkeg on the verge of explosion, well, history says you are incorrect.
As to Dr. King, as your own post indicates, the FBI fed misinformation to the Kennedys, and Lyndon Johnson, about the nature of Dr. King's political beliefs and his potential to be a "threat" to the US as a communist sympathizer or otherwise. Some of the FBI's concern was probably truly national security, although seen through the rather twisted lens of J. Edgar Hoover's rather paranoid view of communism. But some of what racist, again stemming from Hoover's own beliefs about the Civil Rights movement.
Yes, absolutely, there was fear of widespread, widescale violence in the South. In the south, the National Guard and the police were used against black protesters and, fortunately for all of us, MOST of the African-American leadership believed in non-violent resistance to Jim Crow and change through non-violent means. But there are reasons that federal troops were sent to the South.
I certainly agree that race relations in the North and other parts of the country were never perfect. At the same time, Southerners (and I count myself as own) who have taken to this revisionist history about Jim Crow and segregation and how it "wasn't that bad" or was "the same in the North" are living in a fantasy world.
Blacks in the South could not vote. They could not eat at white restaurants, or sit in movie theaters with whites or drink from the same water fountains. African Americans in the South were on a far too frequent subjected to vigilante violence. They were used a guinea pigs for sterlization experiments, and for testing for example the untreated course of syphilis.
So I'm not sure what your point is. If the idea is that things were not perfect in the North, I agree. If your idea is that there was some sort of equivalency between race relations in the North and the South, OR that the South was not a powderkeg on the verge of explosion, well, history says you are incorrect.
As to Dr. King, as your own post indicates, the FBI fed misinformation to the Kennedys, and Lyndon Johnson, about the nature of Dr. King's political beliefs and his potential to be a "threat" to the US as a communist sympathizer or otherwise. Some of the FBI's concern was probably truly national security, although seen through the rather twisted lens of J. Edgar Hoover's rather paranoid view of communism. But some of what racist, again stemming from Hoover's own beliefs about the Civil Rights movement.
Bob,
You still don't get it. I don't have a "Side". You can't pidgeonhole me so that it can help you to point fingers. I follow a new political party. It's called "Common Sense".
How can "common sense" ever be defined?
It's easy, I take you, and add intelligence and reasoning
But seriously Bob, It's by trying to open your mind to other points of view. Give it a go...
Big up yourself Graham. I'm with you Sir.
Jim Craik
Lifetime Supporter
It's easy, I take you, and add intelligence and reasoning
But seriously Bob, It's by trying to open your mind to other points of view. Give it a go...
Graham speaks for me!
Pat
Supporter
Jeff, you really did not get your money's worth if you studied race relations in the 70s and 80s. I taught at a black university in New Orleans and black folks, you may be surprised ot learn, actually voted in the 70s and 80s. As for Jim Crow Laws , read C. Vann Woodward's book, "The Strange Career of Jim Crow“. I quote, "One of the strangest things about the career of Jim Crow was that the system was born in the North and reached an advanced age before moving South in force.” In 1821 the Democrats changed the New York State constitution to enfranchise all white males, while erecting barriers to black male voters, so that by 1825 fewer than three hundred blacks out of a total State population of almost thirty thousand, and only sixteen of New York City's more than twelve thousand blacks could actually vote. The northern States pioneered viciously discriminatory black codes long before they existed in any Southern State. The Revised Code of Indiana stated in 1862 that “Negroes and mulattos are not allowed to come into the State”, forbade the consummation of legal contracts with the same, imposed a $500. fine on anyone who employed a black person, forbade interracial marriage and forbade blacks from testifying in court against a white person. In Illinois, the land of Lincoln, added almost identical restrictions in 1848 as did Oregon in 1857. Most northern States in the 1860’s did not permit immigration by blacks or, if they did, required them to post a $1000. bond that would be confiscated if they behaved improperly. State-sponsored school segregation was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education. Generally, the remaining Jim Crow laws were overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 well before you lived there.
I was also in the Louisiana National Guard, and no, we were not used by the government to supress blacks. In fact, most of my unit were African Americans. In my four years there, the only civil disturbance we handled was looting after the hurricanes and labor issues at the port.
My point is you are mistaken to think race relations are a "southern problem" and not a northern, western or eastern one. The list of riots I provided would indicate my point, this is not a uniquely southern problem. As for today, look at the last census, African-Americans have been moving back to the South in increasing numbers in recent decades, a social movement commonly identified as ‘‘return migration’’. This demographic movement reverses the major trend of the 20th century: the massive exodus of African-Americans
from the South to other parts of the country, or what has been called the ‘‘Great Migration’’. Using samples of census data from the University of Minnesota Population Center’s ‘‘Integrated Public describes trends in African-American migration to the South across recent decades, and explores tthe concept of ‘‘return migration’’ to various demographic patterns.
As I said before, race ralations are a NATIONAL PROBLEM that need to continue to be addressed. You are also woefully deficient on the facts and that appears to have manifested in a genuine regional bias.
Jeff Young
GT40s Supporter
Veek, I'm speechless. I said above that I agree there were racial issues in other parts of the country and I agree with you blacks were certainly not treated fairly pretty much anywhere until the civil rights movement.
But please do stop with the totally incorrect and revisionist idea that things were just as bad elsewhere as they were in the South. I of course understand that AFrican Americans had the right to vote in the South in the 70s and 80s, post Voting Rights Act. I was simply stating when I lived here (I moved to Tennessee in 1974, and to South Carolina in 1977).
Just as a brief taste of this being primarily a Southern problem, especially after WII, remember the Southern Manifesto? You may want to see who supported it and what it was about. And remember, that this was just a small part of the problem:
Southern Manifesto - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Southern Manifesto was a document written February–March 1956 by Adisen and Charles in the United States Congress opposed to racial integration in public places.[1] The manifesto was signed by 101 politicians (99 Democrats and 2 Republicans) from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.[1] The document was largely drawn up to counter the landmark Supreme Court 1954 ruling Brown v. Board of Education.
The initial version was written by Strom Thurmond and the final version mainly by Richard Russell.[2] The manifesto was signed by 19 Senators and 82 members of the House of Representatives, including the entire congressional delegations of the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia. All of the signatures were Southern Democrats except two: Republicans Joel Broyhill and Richard Poff of Virginia. School segregation laws were some of the most enduring and best-known of the Jim Crow laws that characterized the American South and several northern states at the time.
******************
Your revisionist historical beliefs are unfortunate, and remind me of Holocaust denial and those in Japan who claim the military government of the 30s and 40s was not the horribly repressive, war-creating machine that it was.
The men and women who made the Civil RIghts movement happen deserve better than your attitude, and we whites from the South owe them our gratitude for achieving change without, for the most part, violence, despite having horrible instances of violence inflicted upon them by racist whites in the South up until well after the Civil Rights Acts.
I'm ashamed of where the South was on race, but fairly proud of where we are now. I hope you will join me in that.
But please do stop with the totally incorrect and revisionist idea that things were just as bad elsewhere as they were in the South. I of course understand that AFrican Americans had the right to vote in the South in the 70s and 80s, post Voting Rights Act. I was simply stating when I lived here (I moved to Tennessee in 1974, and to South Carolina in 1977).
Just as a brief taste of this being primarily a Southern problem, especially after WII, remember the Southern Manifesto? You may want to see who supported it and what it was about. And remember, that this was just a small part of the problem:
Southern Manifesto - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Southern Manifesto was a document written February–March 1956 by Adisen and Charles in the United States Congress opposed to racial integration in public places.[1] The manifesto was signed by 101 politicians (99 Democrats and 2 Republicans) from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.[1] The document was largely drawn up to counter the landmark Supreme Court 1954 ruling Brown v. Board of Education.
The initial version was written by Strom Thurmond and the final version mainly by Richard Russell.[2] The manifesto was signed by 19 Senators and 82 members of the House of Representatives, including the entire congressional delegations of the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia. All of the signatures were Southern Democrats except two: Republicans Joel Broyhill and Richard Poff of Virginia. School segregation laws were some of the most enduring and best-known of the Jim Crow laws that characterized the American South and several northern states at the time.
******************
Your revisionist historical beliefs are unfortunate, and remind me of Holocaust denial and those in Japan who claim the military government of the 30s and 40s was not the horribly repressive, war-creating machine that it was.
The men and women who made the Civil RIghts movement happen deserve better than your attitude, and we whites from the South owe them our gratitude for achieving change without, for the most part, violence, despite having horrible instances of violence inflicted upon them by racist whites in the South up until well after the Civil Rights Acts.
I'm ashamed of where the South was on race, but fairly proud of where we are now. I hope you will join me in that.
Pat
Supporter
Jeff, you are simply dead wrong is saying this is "this being primarily a Southern problem". Then explain the geographic list of riots I provided earlier. How many were in the north? There is nothing "revisionist" about it. Blacks are STILL not being treated fairly and that is not "primarily a Southern problem". Black NATIONAL unemployment is at a 25 year high. This is not "primarily a Southern problem". How's the black unemployment in Detroit, Oakland, Newark, Chicago or New York? How’s the black unemployment, poverty or dropout rate in your city? Do you care or is this "primarily a Southern problem" and something for just for “them southern bigots” to concern themselves about. What have you personally done about it? What is your state’s incarceration rate of African Americans, the dropout rates or unemployment? Are you are proud of that?
It's pathetic that among other things, the schools serving the black community failing, black unemployment is still much higher than the national rate, the prisons are overflowing with black inmates, families are overwhelmed, neighborhoods are stagnant or gentrifying, and civic involvement appears to be eroding and all of this is the product of fifty years of liberal social engineering and educational failure. You were wrong about Jim Crow being only in the south, wrong about voting rights and wrong to be proud of the denigration of the black family. You are part of the problem in that you are an enabler in your ridiculous proposition that this is "primarily a Southern problem" in that it allows you to avoid dealing with black education, unemployment and poverty IN YOUR COMMUNITY, wherever that may be. Don’t lecture southerners until you get your own house in order. I’m not proud of where we are and horrified with the fact that race relations and quality of life for the African American community is trending worse, not better. The African American community deserves better than your attitude and condescension and abdication of your social responsibility to be part of the solution instead of blaming others for the problem.
Veek, its great to read intelligent, fair thoughts from someone as well versed in the subject as you are. Thank you.
Jim Craik
Lifetime Supporter
Posted By Veek,
I know I'll probably take flak for this, but........
Veek, there may be another reason all together, rather than blaming the education system that seems to serve most very well, how about this.
As I have stated many times, the main reason America is great is that we have always attracted the best and brightest from around the world. Smart people with risk taking tendancies. The lazy ones are still in Prague, or Mexico City. This has allowed the US to have for the most part a smart hard working population.
This may get me in trouble..... but there is one exception, one group missed out on the natural selection, folks who were brough here as slaves. Choice was not involved, actually we got the ones who got caught. This could help to explain why one group has a harder time being sucessful.
