Conversation with Thelton Henderson

Thelton Henderson Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

Photo by S. Beth Atkin

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Kennedy Justice

Let's talk a little about the Kennedys. You had the opportunity to work in their Justice Department in the field. Looking back, what is your assessment of the role that they played during this critical period when the movement was starting up in the South, building velocity, until the period when President Kennedy was assassinated?

I think they played a very important role, a psychological role if nothing else. And certainly more than that. But in the sense that I think it wasn't coincidental that the Civil Rights Movement picked up steam during this time, because I think the Kennedys gave hope because they listened, and I think they indicated to the civil rights leaders that they cared and that they had an ear in Washington. I think this was an important part of the activity you saw, whereas I think in the previous administration there was no feeling that if we demonstrate and do things we're going to get the attention of the administration. So I think they played a very important part in that.

But there were limitations, in a sense, because some of their political appointments of judges in the South didn't match the idealism that they had with regard to civil rights.

They didn't and I think that was a tragedy. They essentially traded off, I believe, the federal appointments in the South for other political advantages in the South. And so they let the senator, who's name I don't remember now, perhaps it was Eastland --

Senator John Eastland [Democrat, Mississippi].

They let Eastland designate who the judges would be and he appointed four in particular, really racist, segregationist judges, who were really awful judges for civil rights. And that was a bad thing.

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