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Why Was Kennedy Important To The Civil Rights Movement

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While Kennedy was in office he become involved in many significant events of the civil rights movement. A noteworthy and controversial event many people do not commonly relate Kennedy with, was the freedom rides of 1961 by the Congress of Racial Equality. This was controversial as Kennedy had to handle the situation carefully without causing a scene and undermining the publicity of the work he was doing with the Cuban missile crisis. Kennedy had to work efficiently as a lot of pressure was being put on him. This was done especially by the freedom riders, who were risking their lives, waiting for change to come that Kennedy administration had the power to do. For years and years buses had been segregated in the southern states, and the southern states were not going to let this go easily. Freedom riders were arrested in North Carolina and beaten in South Carolina. In Alabama, a bus was burned and the riders attacked with baseball bats and tire irons.

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