Shock slap: Julian Bond calls JFK a 'do-nothing president' on civil rights

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

Former President John F. Kennedy, considered a friend of Martin Luther King Jr., was disinterested in and naive about civil rights, a weak leader whose death 50 years ago helped pave the way for a surprisingly strong Civil Rights Act from Lyndon Johnson, according to Julian Bond, the former NAACP president.

 

In a blunt assessment of JFK as a "do-nothing president," Bond recalled that black leaders in the 1960s "were not enamored of him," and "he was not our favorite politician."

 

Kennedy, he added a new book of how leaders and celebrities recall JFK, "knew almost no black people and had few associations with them. This was alien territory for them."

 

His views are among the harshest of Kennedy in the book, "November 22, 1963: Reflections on the Life, Assassination, and Legacy of John F. Kennedy" by journalist Dean R. Owen.

[Casino67]

Only from a failing memory.

 

I seem to recall that JFK didn't have much legislative success. He did set a tone and made America feel good and certainly made us (me) proud of the results of the Cuban missile problem. JFK did get lowering of taxes thru, something that the current Dems should try to remember. The economy took off after the lower rate went into effect.

 

It was Johnson, who was in love with Jackie, that got everything thru Congress after the assassination. Who knows what would have happened had Johnson been his own man for his entire presidency.