her Robert,
the Attorney General, threw himself wholeheartedly into the civil (p. 505)
rights fray.[20-13] As senator and later as President, Kennedy was
sympathetic to the aspirations of the black minority, appreciated its
support in his campaign, but regarded civil rights as one, and not the
most pressing, problem facing the Chief Executive. Even his
administrations's use of federal marshals during the freedom rides in
1961 and its use of both marshals and troops at Oxford, Mississippi,
in 1962 and troops again in Alabama in 1963 were justified in the name
of enforcement of federal judicial processes. Well into 1963 he
studiously downplayed the civil rights issues involved.

[Footnote 20-13: This discussion of Kennedy's civil
rights position is based on Arthur M. Schlesinger,
_A Thousand Days_ (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965);
Theodore C. Sorensen, _Kennedy_ (New York: Harper
and Row, 1965); and the following oral history
interviews in the J. F. Kennedy Library: Berl
Bernhard with Harris Wofford, 29 Nov 65, Roy
Wilkins, 13 Aug 64, and Thurgood Marshall, 7 Apr
64; Joseph O'Connor with Theodore Hesburgh, 27 Mar
66. Also consulted were Sorensen's _The Kennedy
Legacy_ (New York: New American Library, 1970);
Victor S. Navasky, _Kennedy Justice_ (New York:
Atheneum, 1971); William G. Carlton, "Kennedy in
History," in _Perspectives on 20th Century America:
Readings and Commentary_, ed. Otis L. Graham, Jr.
(New York: Dodd, Mead, 1973); Edwin Guthman, _We
Band of Brothers: A Memoir of Robert F. Kennedy_
(New York: Harper and Row, 1971); Burke Marshall,
_Federation and Civil Rights_ (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1974).]

Kennedy was convinced that the only answer to the injustices suffered
by Negroes was a series of strong laws, but he was also certain that
such legislation was impossible to achieve in 1961. To urge it on an
unwilling Congress would only jeopardize his legislative program,
increase the black minority's feeling of frustration, and divide the
nation in a period of national crisis. Discussing the Civil Rights
Commission's "non-neg