10 Martyrs That Furthered The Civil Rights Cause
5. John F Kennedy
A 43-year-old war hero, author, and US senator, JFK was the charismatic new president of the ‘60s that would take the country in the liberal direction it was begging to go. But tragically, he underestimated the extent to which his establishment opposition were willing to go too.
A decade shaped by a Cold War abroad and sweltering divisions at home, his presidency began with an (unsuccessful) attempt to prevent a CIA invasion of socialist Cuba in 1961. Years later he would also begin to order a withdrawal of forces from Vietnam and on the home front, actively endorsed the civil rights movement as well as overseeing a huge erosion of the federal death penalty system.
But whilst the country seemed ready for such radical change, his subordinates were not. On 22 November 1963, Kennedy was shot dead whilst riding in an open motorcade in Dallas, Texas. Despite the official commission on the murder confirming a single actor, Lee Harvey Oswald, the autopsy pointed to various shooters from multiple angles. Why would the commission omit this? Moreover, Oswald was mysteriously murdered two days later…
Kennedy left a chasm in progressive American politics, one that was almost filled by his brother, Bob, when he won the Democratic nomination for President five year later, before suffering the same fate as his brother. But it was not all for nothing: months after JFK’s death, civil rights would become law and over the next decade, millions would join in protests against a disastrous Vietnam War.