The Kennedy Men_ 1901-1963 - Laurence Leamer [362]
Bobby was not some northern preacher come south to condemn only southern racists. Earlier than almost anyone in American public life, he understood the sheer hypocrisy of such racial moralizing. He saw that North and South, liberal and conservative, redneck and ascot-garbed, the whole nation bore the burden of racism. “The problem between the white and colored people is a problem for all sections of the United States,” he told his Georgia audience. “I believe there has been a great deal of hypocrisy in dealing with it. In fact, I found when I came to the Department of Justice that I need look no further to find evidence of this.”
Bobby was not a natural orator, and he seemed uncomfortable before the University of Georgia audience. His hands shook, and he spoke in a high-pitched voice. He told his audience that at the Justice Department only 10 of the 950 lawyers were blacks. What he did not say, and he knew as well, was that at the FBI there were only three black agents, and they were the director’s chauffeurs. “Financial leaders from the East who deplore discrimination in the South belong to institutions where no blacks or Jews are allowed and their children attend private schools where no Negro students are enrolled,” he continued. “Union officials criticize southern leaders and yet practice discrimination with their unions. Government officials belong to private clubs in Washington where blacks, including ambassadors, are not welcomed even at meal times.”
Bobby was a truth-sayer, and his words resonated deeply within his audience, which responded in the end with sustained applause. He was so consumed with the cold war, however, that he attempted to relate everything to the struggle against the Soviets, as he did when talking about the first two blacks graduating from the university. “In the worldwide struggle the graduation at this university of Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes will without question aid and assist the fight against Communist political infiltration and guerrilla warfare,” he told the audience.
As Bobby spoke, a group of black and white civil rights activists were traveling south in a Greyhound bus, not thinking that they were assisting in “the fight against Communist political infiltration and guerrilla warfare.” The Freedom Riders were confronting the South’s segregated system by sitting together, black and white, traveling deeper and deeper into danger. As they set out, they were not accompanied by reporters ready to celebrate their acts and, by their presence, help to protect them. Nor did helicopters fly overhead or federal marshals lead them down isolated macadam strips.
For a man who appreciated courage above all virtues and sought to exemplify both political and physical bravery, Bobby should have seen these activists as heroic figures. Instead, he saw them as endangering what he hoped would be the acceptance of federal laws by the South. As Bobby saw it, politicians like Alabama governor John Patterson might shout, “Never!” but if the federal law steadily nudged the South forward, the people would grudgingly, reluctantly assent.
To the Kennedy brothers, what was so maddening about the Freedom Riders was that instead of simply making their point and moving on, these young men and women pushed and pushed and pushed, sending new groups of nonviolent activists to pick up the bloody banner from those who could carry it no further. The first group of Freedom Riders got as far south as Anniston, Alabama, before their bus was overturned and burned. Those who were not hospitalized got onto a new bus and headed south again. When these Riders were brutally assailed in Birmingham, they flew to New Orleans while a new group arrived to get on a bus and travel farther south.
“Stop them!” Kennedy ordered Wofford, his special assistant for civil rights. “Get your friends off those buses!” The president’s command showed a woeful lack of understanding of the civil rights movement. Neither Wofford, King, nor anyone else had control over the Freedom Riders or could contain the