Nov 23, 2003 By Amanda Clegg 3 min read

As a young, black soldier in the U.S. Army, the Rev. Robert Spence Jr. remembers feeling a loss not just for himself but for the black community the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. “I had a deep sincere admiration for our president,” he said. “I was sick that we would become losers over the loss of our president, especially in the African-American community.”

Spence, a former Fayette NAACP president, saw in Kennedy a promise for equality among men.

“He did more than any other president, including Lincoln,” the 60-year-old Brownsville resident said. “He made courageous and gutsy moves for African-Americans.”

Those moves included taking a stand on the segregation of schools and introducing the civil rights bill to Congress.

On June 11, 1963, Kennedy addressed the nation over the radio and television after two black students were turned away from the University of Alabama because of their race.

“Now the time has come for this nation to fulfill its promise,” Kennedy said in his speech. “The events of Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or state or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them.”

Kennedy spoke up for the black community that day, but James Wood, a history and political science professor at California University of Pennsylvania, said his role in the civil rights movement was “marginal.”

“If he’d had his choice, he would not have been an active participant at all,” Wood said. “He was elected president at a time when Martin Luther King had just successfully concluded his initial leadership efforts in Montgomery, Alabama. Kennedy avoided Martin Luther King or any association with Martin Luther King as best he could for a long time for fear of riling up his southern Democratic Party members.”

Although the weight of his role in the civil rights movement is arguable, introducing the civil rights bill in June 1963 established Kennedy and the Democratic Party as advocates for civil rights.

Dennis Simon, associate professor of political science at Southern Methodist University, said the bill was “the first strong bill passed by Congress since reconstruction.”

“When Kennedy introduced (the bill), that’s where he made the turn for the Democratic Party against its southern Democratic opposition,” he said.

Since the 1960s and 1970s, race relations in the United States have slowed, Wood said.

“I’m sure he’d be disappointed,” he said of Kennedy. “After tremendous amounts of success in the ’60s, followed up with some amount of success in the ’70s, he would be appalled at the still wide gap between white and black in this country.”

Spence agreed.

“If (Kennedy) was alive today and he was witnessing what is going on, his heart would be saddened,” Spence said.

“We haven’t grown in 40 years. I’m talking about how they took the teeth out of affirmative action, and they really haven’t done too much to promote opportunities for African-Americans in this country.”

Spence said protecting civil rights is a job for all Americans, and he fears Kennedy’s vision “to level the playing field for all mankind” has faded.

“We might be going in the opposite direction,” Spence said. “It’s a scary situation when you know your civil rights don’t mean that much to people who are supposed to be protecting them.”

Spence said he prays for a leader to follow “the blueprint laid by JFK, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.”

“This country was founded on ‘united we stand,'” he said. “We should never give into division. Let them be our examples to make this a better world.”