John F Kennedy Civil Rights Speech Analysis

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President John F. Kennedy gave many speeches during his lifetime, but two of his speeches largely stood out and largely impacted the world around him. These two speeches, Address to the Greater Ministerial Association and Televised Address to the Nation on Civil Rights, are memorable because they helped bring attention to the civil rights movement. The movement would later produce the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It is not fair to address the Civil Rights Act without giving John F. Kennedy some credit for trying to make it happen. In, at that time Senator, John F. Kennedy’s first speech, Address to the Greater Ministerial Association, he discusses his idea that America should have no certain defining characteristic when it comes to the people …show more content…

Kennedy’s speeches are still increasingly relevant today. Undoubtedly, his speech with the most relativity to today’s time is his Televised Address to the Nation on Civil Rights. Even today in America, and even all across the globe, racism is still a very large issue. One of Kennedy’s quotes that could still easily be applied to today’s time is “This is one country. It has become one country because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents. We cannot say to 10 percent of the population that you can't have that right; that your children cannot have the chance to develop whatever talents they have; that the only way that they are going to get their rights is to go into the streets and demonstrate. I think we owe them and we owe ourselves a better country than that.” While this quote may not be applicable in the way that it was back then, it is definitely still applicable now. Racism is still largely an issue all around the world, people fail to recognize that it exists though. One of the most widespread forms of racism occurring today is in regard to the refugee crisis. People from countries all around the world are debating whether or not we should be allowed to accept these refugees. People fear them, largely because they believe that just because they share the same religion or the same skin color as people who have caused harm to people in the past, they must be exactly like

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