During his first two years in office, President Kennedy has been cautious to push ahead with civil rights legislation as a result of his narrow election victory and small working margin in Congress.
Instead, he has issued executive orders banning discrimination in federal hiring and federal housing, and he establishes the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity.
The Justice Department, under Attorney General Robert Kennedy, has actively promoted school integration, obtained an Interstate Commerce Commission ruling to enforce desegregation on interstate travel, and launched five times the number of lawsuits resulting from voting violations than the previous administration.
For African Americans who have high expectations for the administration, more can, and should, be done.
President Kennedy begins a very public lobbying campaign, pressing various private organizations to desegregate and demonstrate support for his bill.
Powerful southerners in the Democratic-controlled Congress oppose the bill, and this has serious implications: Southern Democrats chair twelve of eighteen committees in the Senate and twelve of twenty-one in the House. It means putting the President's entire legislative agenda at risk.
One part of President Kennedy's agenda is a proposed tax reduction. He believes it will stimulate the economy and have a positive influence on the 1964 election. But it needs time to do its work, so it has to be passed soon. This will be difficult because Congressional conservatives already dislike the bill.
Now, the civil rights bill could tie up Congress in a wrangle that might keep the tax bill from ever reaching to the House floor.
