Fifty years ago today, President John F. Kennedy spoke to the nation after a day of racial turmoil in the state of Alabama. On June 11, 1963, Vivian Malone and James Hood became the first black students to successfully enroll at the University of Alabama.
Alabama’s Governor George Wallace–who vowed in his inaugural address, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever”–defiantly stood in the door of the school, moving only under the threat of arrest from the Alabama National Guard. It was a decision by President Kennedy to federalize the state’s National Guard that helped ensure that the two students enrolled.
In a televised speech later that evening, Kennedy addressed the campus incident and gave an impassioned plea for civil rights in America. He called upon citizens to “stop and examine [their] conscience” and to uphold the country’s deeply ingrained values of equality for all Americans, not just a fraction of the population.
“One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice,” said Kennedy. “They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.”