his alienation from God, social divisions and man s attempt to escape
from himself. Twentieth-century man is a lonely creature, wrestling
with the anxieties and the doubts, meaninglessly guilt and death. He
is haunted by the failures of the past, perplexed by the problems of the
present, and fearful about the uncertainties of the future. Man is thrust
into a world of mass culture. Manipulated by hidden, eh, persuaders,95
robbed our, us of selfhood and made a slave of superficial conformity.
He is confused about who he is. He does not know what to do. He does
not know from whence he is come, neither does he know where he is
going. Man is like a leaf blown about in the wind.
Kennedy accep- accepted the responsibility in this twentieth cen-
tury, in this, and faced the complex and confused world situation with-
out succumbing to despair. He accepted the challenge, and like Jesus
Christ he faced it resolutely. For he accepted the office truly, in a critical
time. There was race tension throughout the universe and there are many
other problems at which he faced that time will not permit me to men-
tion tonight, that really deserves notation, but I want to confine my argu-
ment to his stand on civil rights. For truly he was a friend to the Negro.
Abraham Lincoln, the great emancipator, live today in the hearts
of millions of people, and like Abraham Lincoln the memory of
Kennedy still linger in our hearts. He was a friend to civil rights. In
1963 the Negro revo- revolution in America rose more rapidly than
ever before. Kennedy did not start the revolution and nothing he could
have done could have stopped it, but in 1963 he befriended it and, eh,
gave it the high aspiration and helped guide it, that, eh, it might run
more smoothly. He was not forced into this position by circumstances
beyond his control, as many have written. On the contrary, the sympa-
thy he displayed, the appointees he assembled, the courage he demon-
strated in placing himself at the head of the revolution all encouraged
a climate for reform and reason for hope within the southern Negro
leadership. And really and truly the new efforts, eh, and, eh, pressures
would probably not have been risked had there been a different attitude
in the White House and in the Department of Justice, but Kennedy was
there. He came on scene at such a time as this. He was the man of the
hour. He seemed to have long realized that the Negro was not just a
black man, the Negro was not just a brown man, but he was a man with
The Day the Worl d Stood Stil l [ 157 ]