Baldwin–Kennedy meeting
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Baldwin–Kennedy meeting of May 24, 1963 was an attempt to improve race relations in the United States.
Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
Robert F. Kennedy Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925June 6, 1968), also known by his initials RFK and by the nickname Bobby, was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, a ...
invited novelist
James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; de ...
, along with a large group of cultural leaders, to meet in a Kennedy apartment in New York City. The meeting became antagonistic and the group reached no consensus. The black delegation generally felt that Kennedy did not understand the full extent of
racism in the United States Racism in the United States comprises negative attitudes and views on race or ethnicity which are related to each other, are held by various people and groups in the United States, and have been reflected in discriminatory laws, practices and ...
. Ultimately the meeting demonstrated the urgency of the racial situation and was a positive turning point in Kennedy's attitude towards the
Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
.


Background

After formally abolishing slavery, the United States maintained a racist society through
Jim Crow laws The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
and other forms of systemic inequality. This racism became increasingly apparent due to many well-publicized instances of
police violence Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to, ...
against
nonviolent direct action Direct action originated as a political activism, activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic power, economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those a ...
s. As the
Birmingham campaign The Birmingham campaign, also known as the Birmingham movement or Birmingham confrontation, was an American movement organized in early 1963 by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to bring attention to the integration efforts o ...
and
Birmingham riot of 1963 The Birmingham riot of 1963 was a civil disorder and riot in Birmingham, Alabama, that was provoked by bombings on the night of May 11, 1963. The bombings targeted African-American leaders of the Birmingham campaign. In response, local Africa ...
brought negative attention to urban racism in the United States, Robert Kennedy wanted to prevent similar unrest from taking place in northern cities. Baldwin was reportedly already in contact with Kennedy on the topic of Birmingham, calling for an investigation into the role of the FBI and other federal agencies. Baldwin, already a popular novelist, had recently gained additional fame by virtue of ''
The Fire Next Time ''The Fire Next Time'' is a 1963 non-fiction book by James Baldwin, containing two essays: "My Dungeon Shook: Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation" and "Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region of My Mind". Th ...
'', a book of two essays urging action against racism in America. Baldwin had become an iconic
Black American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
, and Kennedy sought him out for advice on how to improve race relations. Kennedy had met Baldwin in 1962 at a
Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
dinner and briefly in May 1963 at
Hickory Hill Hickory Hill may refer to several places: United States (by state) * Hickory Hill, Arkansas * Hickory Hill, Florida * Hickory Hill (Thomson, Georgia), National Register of Historic Places listings in McDuffie County, Georgia, listed on the NRHP i ...
. They agreed to meet again, with a group of cultural leaders assembled by Baldwin.


Meeting

According to
Clarence Benjamin Jones Clarence Benjamin Jones (born January 8, 1931) is an American lawyer and the former personal counsel, advisor, draft speech writer and close friend of Martin Luther King Jr. He is a Scholar in Residence at the Martin Luther King Jr. Institute at ...
, an advisor to
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
and participant in the eventual meeting, in May 1963, Attorney General Robert Kennedy asked novelist James Baldwin to organize a "quiet, off-the-record, unpublicized get-together of prominent Negroes" to discuss the state of race relations. The meeting took place at an apartment owned by the Kennedy family at 24
Central Park South 59th Street is a crosstown street in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan, running from York Avenue and Sutton Place on the East Side (Manhattan), East Side of Manhattan to the West Side Highway on the West Side (Manha ...
in New York City. To meet with Kennedy and his aide
Burke Marshall Burke Marshall (October 1, 1922 – June 2, 2003) was an American lawyer and who served as the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division during the Civil Rights Movement. Early life Marshall was born in Plainfield, ...
, Baldwin brought:Saucedo, ''The Fire Within'' (2004), p. 91. * David Baldwin, James Baldwin's brother *
Harry Belafonte Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...
, singer and activist * Edwin C. Berry, director of the
Chicago Urban League The Chicago Urban League, established in 1916 in Chicago, Illinois, is an affiliate of the National Urban League that develops programs and partnerships and engages in advocacy to address the need for employment, entrepreneurship, affordable housin ...
*
Kenneth Clark Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. After running two important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s, he came to wider public notice on television ...
, psychologist, activist, and founder of
Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited, more commonly called HARYOU, was an American social activism organization founded by psychologists Kenneth Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark in 1962. Its director was Cyril deGrasse Tyson, father of astrophysicist Ne ...
* June Shagaloff, Education Director of the
NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
(attending in an "unofficial capacity") *
Lorraine Hansberry Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (May 19, 1930 – January 12, 1965) was a playwright and writer. She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Her best-known work, the play ''A Raisin in the Sun'', highlig ...
, playwright best known for ''
A Raisin in the Sun ''A Raisin in the Sun'' is a play by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959. The title comes from the poem "Harlem" (also known as "A Dream Deferred") by Langston Hughes. The story tells of a black family's experiences in south Chi ...
'' (1959) *
Lena Horne Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American dancer, actress, singer, and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned more than seventy years, appearing in film, television, and theatre. Horne joined the chorus of th ...
, musician, actor and activist *
Clarence Benjamin Jones Clarence Benjamin Jones (born January 8, 1931) is an American lawyer and the former personal counsel, advisor, draft speech writer and close friend of Martin Luther King Jr. He is a Scholar in Residence at the Martin Luther King Jr. Institute at ...
, advisor to Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
and civil rights lawyer * Jerome Smith,
Freedom Rider Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions ''Morgan v. Virginia' ...
associated with the
Congress of Racial Equality The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is an African Americans, African-American civil rights organization in the United States that played a pivotal role for African Americans in the civil rights movement. Founded in 1942, its stated mission ...
(CORE) *
Rip Torn Elmore Rual "Rip" Torn Jr. (February 6, 1931 – July 9, 2019) was an American actor whose career spanned more than 60 years. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his part as Marsh Turner in '' Cross Creek'' ...
, a young white actor Jerome Smith was a young black civil rights worker who had been beaten and jailed in Mississippi. Edwin Berry brought him along, and his story was not known by Robert Kennedy or most of those in attendance. As the meeting got underway and Kennedy began to recount how the Justice Department had been supporting the civil rights movement, Smith suddenly began to weep "as if he'd just suffered some traumatic flashback" and said: "I've seen you guys eferring to the Justice Departmentstand around and do nothing more than take notes while we're being beaten." The mood quickly became tense. Smith, Baldwin later said,
set the tone of the meeting because he stammers when he's upset and he stammered when he talked to Bobby and said that he was nauseated by the necessity of being in that room. I knew what he meant. It was not personal at all. ... Bobby took it personally. Bobby took it personally and turned away from him. That was a mistake because he turned toward us. We were the reasonable, responsible, mature representatives of the Black community. Lorraine Hansberry said, "You've got a great many very, very accomplished people in this room, Mr. Attorney General. But the only man who should be listened to is that man over there."
Kennedy and Smith began to argue. Kennedy was particularly shocked when Smith said he would "never never never" join the military to fight against Cuba for the USA. The assembled group felt, generally, that Kennedy did not understand the depth of the problem at hand. In '' Sighted Eyes / Feeling Heart'', a documentary about Lorraine Hansbury which aired on the PBS series ''
American Masters ''American Masters'' is a PBS television series which produces biographies on enduring writers, musicians, visual and performing artists, dramatists, filmmakers, and those who have left an indelible impression on the cultural landscape of the ...
'' in 2018, Harry Belafonte recalled that at this point Smith "bared his soul and all his pain and then said very aggressively 'Let me tell you something, in the midst of our oppression you expect to find us giddily going off to fight a war (i.e.,
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
) that's your war, that's unjust, unfair, and so dishonorable it should shame you. I wouldn't pick up a gun to fight for this country. I'd die first.'" Hansberry told Kennedy: "Look, if ''you'' can't understand what this young man is saying, then we are without any hope at all because you and your brother are representatives of the best that a White America can offer; and if ''you'' are insensitive to this, then there's no alternative except our going in the streets ... and chaos". According to historian Arthur Schlesinger, "she talked wildly about giving guns to Negroes in the street so they could start killing white people." Jerome Smith told Kennedy: "I'm close to the moment where I'm ready to take up a gun."Schlesinger, ''Robert Kennedy and His Times'' (1978), pp. 332-333. Kennedy said that his family, immigrants from Ireland, had suffered discrimination upon arriving in America but were able to overcome their hardships to achieve political success, and that the U.S. might have a black president in 40 years. David Baldwin observed that his family had been in the country far longer than Kennedy's, yet had barely been permitted to climb out of poverty. Kennedy later said: "They seemed
possessed Possessed may refer to: Possession * Possession (disambiguation), having some degree of control over something else ** Spirit possession, whereby gods, demons, animas, or other disincarnate entities may temporarily take control of a human body *** ...
. They reacted as a unit. It was impossible to make contact with any of them." The meeting ended after two and a half or three hours, when Hansberry walked out and most of the others followed. Though billed as off-the-record, details of the meeting were recounted a few weeks later in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' in an article by
James Reston James Barrett Reston (November 3, 1909 – December 6, 1995), nicknamed "Scotty", was an American journalist whose career spanned the mid-1930s to the early 1990s. He was associated for many years with ''The New York Times.'' Early lif ...
about the Kennedy administration's approach to race relations. Reston's summary provides only Robert Kennedy's perspective on the meeting, offering his appraisal that the problem was one of both "militant Negro and white leaders" and stating that the attorney general "apparently has little faith in the quieter moderate leaders of both races." As Clarence Jones served as the attorney representing
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
at the meeting, he strongly disputed Reston's account of the meeting and issued a detailed, four-page letter to the editor of the ''New York Times'', with copy to Robert Kennedy, providing his alternative assessment of the meeting. Directly challenging the perception given in Reston's coverage of the meeting, that "a lawyer for Dr. King had remained silent throughout the meeting (the implication being as a 'moderate' such a lawyer was intimidated from speaking)," Jones summarized four areas of discussion in which he had actively engaged with the Attorney General during the meeting. Specifically, Jones notes that he had requested that the President personally accompany
University of Alabama The University of Alabama (informally known as Alabama, UA, or Bama) is a Public university, public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of Alabama is the oldest and la ...
students as a way to help assure successful integration. He directed the Attorney General's attention to the appointment of certain judges by his administration who, in Jones' opinion, "had openly and avowedly, prior to their appointment, indicated their flagrant segregationist views." He raised the idea of the President making a series of televised speeches addressing the elimination of segregation and discrimination. Finally, he participated in the discussion of the role and effectiveness of some white Southern FBI agents in civil rights cases.


Aftermath

Despite feeling emotional and overwhelmed in the aftermath of the meeting, Baldwin and Clark arrived (half an hour late) to
WGBH WGBH may refer to: * WGBH Educational Foundation, based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States ** WGBH (FM), a public radio station at Boston, Massachusetts on 89.7 MHz owned by the WGBH Educational Foundation ** WGBH-TV WGBH-TV (channel 2), ...
, where Clark interviewed Baldwin on tape. "We were a little shocked at the extent of his naivete," Baldwin was quoted as saying. "We told him that though the Kennedy administration has done some things the
Eisenhower administration Dwight D. Eisenhower's tenure as the 34th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1953, and ended on January 20, 1961. Eisenhower, a Republican from Kansas, took office following a landslide victory ov ...
never did, its actions have yet to affect the masses of Negro people." After the meeting, Robert Kennedy ordered FBI director
J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation  ...
to increase surveillance of Baldwin and tap the home phone of Jones. A memo issued four days after the meeting asked the FBI to produce information, "particularly of a derogatory nature." A subsequent report labeled Baldwin both a "pervert" and a "communist." Actor
Rip Torn Elmore Rual "Rip" Torn Jr. (February 6, 1931 – July 9, 2019) was an American actor whose career spanned more than 60 years. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his part as Marsh Turner in '' Cross Creek'' ...
discovered that he also had been placed under surveillance after the meeting.W. J. Weatherby, "Mr Baldwin and the spooks: Letter from America", ''The Guardian'', September 20, 1988; accesse
via ProQuest
May 21, 2013.
Baldwin also says he suffered retaliation from the
State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...
, including interference with his passport. Harry Belafonte recalled
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
calling him the following day wanting to know the details of the meeting. When Belafonte described the "disaster," and Jerome Smith's "fighting words," King said "Maybe it's just what Bobby needed to hear." Jones recalled
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
saying shortly after the dust-up, "Looks like the Attorney General of the United States regards you as an uppity Negro. But that's all right. We still love you. You're our uppity Negro." To his biographer, Arthur Schlesinger, Kennedy said ("his voice filled with despair"):
They don't know what the laws are—they don't know what the facts are—they don't know what we've been doing or what we're trying to do. You can't talk to them the way you can talk to Martin Luther King or Roy Wilkins. They didn't want to talk that way. It was all emotion, hysteria—they stood up and orated—they cursed—some of them wept and left the room.
Schlesinger and others nevertheless describe the moment as a long-term turning point in RFK's attitude towards the Black liberation struggle.Goduti, ''Robert F. Kennedy and the Shaping of Civil Rights'' (2013), p. 192. Less than one month later, President Kennedy gave his landmark
Civil Rights Address The Report to the American People on Civil Rights was a speech on civil rights, delivered on radio and television by United States President John F. Kennedy from the Oval Office on June 11, 1963 in which he proposed legislation that would later b ...
. Robert Kennedy was the only White House adviser to actively encourage his brother to give the speech, in which the president publicly proposed legislation that would become the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and United States labor law, labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on Race (human categorization), race, Person of color, color, religion, sex, and nationa ...
. Revisiting the issue of military service, Robert Kennedy later asked the Senate Judiciary Committee: "How long can we say to a Negro in Jackson, 'When war comes you will be an American citizen, but in the meantime you're a citizen of Mississippi—and we can't help you'?"*Edwin O. Guthman & Jeffrey Shulman, ''Robert Kennedy: In His Own Words'' (New York: Bantam, 1998), p. 65.


See also

* '' James Baldwin: A Soul on Fire'' *
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, also known as simply the March on Washington or The Great March on Washington, was held in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic righ ...


References


Sources

*Goduti, Philip A. ''Robert F. Kennedy and the Shaping of Civil Rights, 1960-1964''. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2013. *Saucedo, Todd.
The Fire Within: The Baldwin Meeting and the Evolution of the Kennedy Administration's Approach to Civil Rights
'' Masters' Thesis,
University of Central Florida The University of Central Florida (UCF) is a public research university whose main campus is in unincorporated Orange County, Florida. UCF also has nine smaller regional campuses throughout central Florida. It is part of the State University ...
, 2004. *Schlesinger, Arthur Meier. ''Robert Kennedy and His Times''.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (; HMH) is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults. The company is based in the Financial Dist ...
, 1978. *Staffordshire, Douglas Field. ''A Historical Guide to James Baldwin''.
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, 2009. {{DEFAULTSORT:Baldwin-Kennedy meeting 1963 in New York City 1963 in the United States Civil rights movement History of New York City Robert F. Kennedy