Inevitable

Still from a Robert Drew documentary, "Crisis," in which he documents the battle of wills between President John F. Kennedy (later assassinated) and Governor Wallace of Alabama over the civil rights of two Negro students (to use the 1960s terminology) attempting to exercise their civil rights by enrolling in the racially segregated University of Alabama.

In a second short documentary, Robert Drew used only the funereal sounds of drums, bagpipes, the clop of hooves as horses drew the bier containing the slain President, the bugle playing Taps, the 21-gun salute. He showed the faces of the Kennedys, the faces in the long lines of mourners, the honor guard, the military. Almost all of them were crying or visibly holding back tears. I was crying too.

The words JFK was speaking in the documentary, shown on the screen, are painfully ironic given the way he was snatched from our midst. Is there anyone who was there who doesn't remember the terrible news of November 22, 1963? And yet JFK's death created the environment in which Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded him, was able to pass an amazing amount of progressive legislation that included civil rights, Medicare, the Voting Rights Act, and the War on Poverty. In that sense, the progress JFK fought for, and perhaps gave his life for, was indeed inevitable.