Press Conference after Meeting with John F. Kennedy
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: October 16, 1961?
Location: Washington, D.C.?
Genre: Film
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Political and Social Views
Voter registration
Details
Following a one-hour discussion at the White House with President Kennedy regarding violence against Mississippi civil rights workers, King calls for a second Emancipation Proclamation, and suggests an executive order ending housing discrimination.1 This transcript was taken from film footage of the press conference.
[Reporter #1]: Dr. King, would you tell us about your visit with the president?
[King]: Yes, I had a very fruitful visit with the president. I discussed with him some of the problems that we are facing in the South and tried to report some of the conditions firsthand that we face in the South at this time. He listened very sympathetically, and we had a most fruitful and rewarding discussion together.
[Reporter #2]: Could you be any more specific about the particular problems that you were discussing?
[King]: Well, I discussed some of the problems in Mississippi that we are facing at this time—the problems in McComb, Mississippi, and also many of the problems that students are facing in seeking to get Negro citizens in the South registered and voting. Also, I proposed to the president an idea that I have been discussing for several weeks now, and that is a need for a sort of second Emancipation Proclamation declaring all segregated facilities unconstitutional and illegal on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.2 Just as the first Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order, I don’t think it is too much to ask for a second Emancipation Proclamation bringing an end to segregation almost a hundred years after the first Emancipation Proclamation was issued.3
[Reporter #3]: What was the president’s reaction to your suggestion? Can we expect this to be forthcoming?
[King]: There again, the president listened very sympathetically and said that he would certainly take all of these things under consideration, but you would have to speak to him concerning the possibilities of this actually becoming a reality.4
[Reporter #4]: Did you make any specific proposals, Dr. King, for action that he might take in McComb, or in Mississippi, or that his administration might take?
[King]: Well, I know that the Justice Department is in the situation right now, seeking to determine if any violations have taken place in the area of voting; that is, the Justice Department can move in this area, and they are moving in Mississippi. There is very little that can be done otherwise—that is from the point of view of the Justice Department—but the situation can be investigated by the Civil Rights Commission, and I suggested to the president that some things like this could be done and certainly called by the president himself.5
[Reporter #1]: On this second Emancipation Proclamation, did you specify particular kinds of segregated facilities, or is this any area in which there’s segregation?
[King]: Any area in which there is segregation. Segregation is still a glaring reality in the South, and we still face it in its hidden and subtle forms all over the nation. And I suggested to the president that the time had come for an executive order outlawing all forms of segregation, whether it is in housing, whether it is in public facilities, other areas where it still exists.
[Reporter #5]: Dr. King, can you tell us how this meeting came about, and why on apparently such short notice?
[King]: Well, I requested the conference with the president. I wanted to talk with him concerning some of these problems—I think they are pressing problems—and of course I have been discussing the idea of an executive order in the area of outlawing all segregation for some time, and I felt that I should present it to the president instead of talking about it elsewhere, so I wanted to come to him and present it direct. Also I suggested the need for an executive order in housing as a specific executive order, because so much of housing, most of the housing financing, falls under the federal government either through FHA, PHA, urban renewal, or veterans loans.6 And this is one area where we need an executive order. And as long as there is housing segregation, as I said to the president, we will have segregation in public schools; we will have segregation in recreational facilities and all areas. So that this is a pressing need, and I think it would solve a great problem if we could get such an order.
[Unidentified Reporter]: About how long—
[Reporter #1]: Do you consider housing the keystone now?
[King]: Well, I would certainly say it is one of the most important areas. I know that we must work in all of these areas and must work simultaneously in all of them, but I do think that this is very important, because as long as we have housing segregation, we will face segregation in these other areas.
[Reporter #4]: What was his reaction to that suggestion to the housing executive order?
[King]: Well, this is not new for the president. He has been studying this, and other suggestions have been made, so that he made it very clear that he had this under advisement.7
[Reporter #6]: How long were you with the president?
[King]: About an hour. Just about an hour.
[Reporter #6]: Just the two of you?
[King]: No. Mr. Louis Martin and Mr. Harris Wofford were in on the conference.8
[Reporter #7]: Dr. King, did the subject of interstate travel come up? [words inaudible] Freedom Riders?
[King]: No, it didn’t. I had an opportunity to discuss that with the Jus—[recording interrupted]9
1. King had first requested a meeting with Kennedy on 16 March 1961 (King to John F. Kennedy, pp. 175–176 in this volume).
2. After Kennedy’s election in November 1960, King began publicly calling for the president to issue a second Emancipation Proclamation that would ban segregation (see note 18, “The Negro and the American Dream,” Emancipation Day Address Delivered at Municipal Auditorium, 2 January 1961, p. 118 in this volume).
3. Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on 22 September 1862. It became effective 1 January 1863.
4. Referring to the Kennedy administration’s handling of civil rights issues in an essay for The Nation, King wrote that “the year 1961 was characterized by inadequacy and incompleteness in the civil-rights field.” King also pointed to the administration’s failure to employ executive power to rein in Southern senators as an example of its timidity (King, “Fumbling on the New Frontier,” 3 March 1962, pp. 414, 416–417 in this volume).
5. Regarding voter registration conditions in Marshall County, Mississippi, Burke Marshall wrote that “we have evidence that registration officials in the county have engaged in racially discriminatory acts and practices depriving Negro citizens of the county of their right to register to vote without distinction because of race or color” and that he had informed the state attorney general of his responsibility to correct that problem (Marshall to L. G. Fant, 8 September 1961). The Civil Rights Commission had received several reports of police brutality against African American voters from the Mississippi State Advisory Committee. In October 1962 the Civil Rights Commission scheduled hearings in Mississippi, but postponed them at the request of the U.S. Justice Department (Hedrick Smith, “U.S. Again Defers Mississippi Study,” New York Times, 7 January 1963).
6. In his 1961 essay in The Nation, King specified that the collective failure of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), the Public Housing Administration (PHA), the Urban Renewal Administration, and the Veterans Administration Loan Program to enforce anti-discrimination clauses demonstrated that “the federal government has participated directly and indirectly in the perpetuation of housing discrimination” (King, “Equality Now,” 4 February 1961, p. 146 in this volume).
7. Despite urges from the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing, of which King was a member, and the Civil Rights Commission, Kennedy did not issue an executive order on housing discrimination until November 1962 (Peter Braestrup, “Ban on Color Line in Housing Is Due,” New York Times, 28 September 1961; “Text of the Kennedy Order Barring Discrimination in Housing,” New York Times, 21 November 1962).
8. Louis E. Martin was a Kennedy advisor and deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
9. King met separately with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy earlier that day to discuss segregation in interstate travel (“King Asks Kennedy to Declare Bias Illegal,” Atlanta Daily World, 17 October 1961). Following the meeting, the attorney general announced that the Illinois Central, Southern, and Louisville and Nashville Railroads would desegregate (Tom Wicker, “Three Railroads in South to Desegregate Stations,” New York Times, 17 October 1961).
Source: NBCNA-NNNBC, National Broadcasting Company News Archives, National Broadcasting Company, Inc., General Library, New York, N.Y. © National Broadcasting Company, Inc. 2014. All Rights Reserved.