(Page 19 of 23) - Federalism and Foreign Affairs in 1960s Civil Rights Reform authored by Dudziak, Mary.

That the world looked to the Civil Rights Bill as a crucial sign of progress on the

American dilemma was powerfully illustrated in the international reaction to President
Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963. Amid the worldwide shock and despair, the U.S.
Information Agency surveyed international opinion. While many nations focused on the
prospects for Soviet-American relations and for peace, in Africa the focal concern was “the fate
of the civil rights movement.” In Lyndon Johnson’s address to the nation, he urged that “[N]o
memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory than the
earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long....There could be no
greater source of strength to this Nation both at home and abroad.” The USIA reported that, due
to their concerns about civil rights, Johnson’s address was met with “relief and gratification” in
Africa, in spite of continuing concern that the assassination might have been prompted by
Kennedy’s civil rights stance. In South Asia, the “media were especially pleased to learn that
President Johnson was determined to carry through President Kennedy’s civil rights program.”
In later weeks, the Western European press “widely applauded” Johnson’s support for the Civil
Rights Bill, and in the Far East, some felt that “President Kennedy’s death would create an
atmosphere conducive to public and Congressional progress” on civil rights.

The international press followed the Civil Rights Bill as it made its way through

Congress. When a Senate filibuster was ended by a cloture vote in June, 1964, the vote was
applauded by the Philippines Herald and Manila Times. As the Bill neared a final vote in the
House of Representatives later that month, USIA Director Carl Rowan wrote to the President,
“[a]ll continents hail the imminent passage of the civil rights bill.” In Tegucigalpa, the paper El
Nacional wondered whether the U.S. appreciated “the dignity it has won in the eyes of the whole
world.” When the Act passed, the USIA reported that

Commentators viewed the passage as the most important step forward in the
American Negro’s struggle for equality since the Emancipation Proclamation; as a
‘victory’ that will ‘shape the future of the United States’; as a ‘turning point’ in
American history; as enhancing the international influence of the United States,
reinforcing the moral authority of the United States and its dedication to freedom

U.S. Information Agency, “Foreign Reaction to the Presidential Succession,”

December 6, 1963, pp. i-ii, 18, Folder: United States Information Agency Vol 1 [3 of 3],
National Security File, Agency File, Box 73, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, Texas;
Lyndon B. Johnson, “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress,” November 27, 1963,
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963-64 (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965), 1:8-9; United States Information Agency,
“Worldwide Reaction to the First Month of the Johnson Administration,” December 24, 1963, p.
15, Folder: United States Information Agency Vol I [3 of 3], National Security File, Agency File,
Box 73, Johnson Library; Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights, 200-207. President Johnson invoked
the memory of Kennedy, yet hoped to use a legislative victory in part to make his own mark on
the presidency.