Week 2, Paper B
Eileen Cook
Listed below are Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson Administrations and how they contributed to the Civil Rights Movement. President Truman ordered the desegregation of the military and antagonistically examined numerous high-profile lynchings, helping him in his presidency by winning sixty-five percent of the African-American votes in the year 1948. Truman also created another Executive Order in the same year, which made it illegal to discriminate against anyone applying for a civil position based on a person's ethnicity. Two years prior, President Truman also created the Executive Order 9808 in 1946. This law recognized the Presidents Committee on Civil Rights. Eisenhower established the Civil Rights Act of 1957 during his presidency, making it the first since the reconstruction. Eisenhower also authorized federal prosecutors to obtain court orders against interfering with voting. He also implemented the Executive Order 9981 allowing equal opportunity for African Americans to be allowed into the military.
President Kennedy reestablished a robust democratic rapport within the African American community through communications with Coretta Scott King voicing his uneasiness in regards to her husband (Dr. King Jr.) being incarcerated and demanding his release. King Sr. denounced his political stance with the Republicans and publicly state his support for Kennedy. This helped JFK will the election with over seventy percent of black voters on his side. President Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act and publicly denounced on television the KKK after the slaying of civil rights worker Viola Luzon as well as making him the first president to arraign the KKK since Ulysses Grant 93 years ago. Finally, Johnson was the first president to nominated the first African American to Supreme Court.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a breakthrough in all of the civil rights acts. In 1964,