September 16, 2013
JFK ISSUED STATEMENT ON BIRMINGHAM CHURCH BOMBING 50 YEARS AGO TODAY
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) Fifty years ago today, September 16, 1963, President John F. Kennedy issued the following statement in response to the previous day's bomb explosion at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama which took the lives of four African-American girls.
"I know I speak on behalf of all Americans in expressing a deep sense of outrage and grief over the killing of the children yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama.
It is regrettable that public disparagement of law and order has encouraged violence which has fallen on the innocent.
If these cruel and tragic events...can only awaken this entire Nation--to a realization of the folly of racial injustice and hatred and violence, then it is not too late for all concerned to unite in steps toward peaceful progress...
Assistant Attorney General Burke Marshall* has returned to Birmingham to be of assistance...and bomb specialists of the FBI are there to lend every assistance in the detection of those responsible...
This Nation is committed to a course of domestic justice and tranquility--and I call upon every citizen, white and Negro, North and South, to put passions and prejudices aside and to join in this effort."
*Burke Marshall (1922-2003) was born in Plainfield, NJ. He served in the US Army intelligence corps during WWII and received his law degree from Yale in 1951.
Marshall worked 10 years at the Covington and Burling Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in anti-trust law and was appointed assistant attorney general by RFK in 1961.
From 1961-1964, Burke Marshall was head of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. He died at his home in Newtown, Connecticut.
SOURCE
"Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963," United States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1964.
THE MAYFLOWER LEFT ENGLAND SEPT 16, 1620
Plymouth, England (JFK+50) The English merchant ship, Mayflower, with 102 passengers on board, departed 393 years ago today, September 16, 1620, bound for Virginia.
The passenger list included a number of religious dissenters**, who referred to themselves as "Saints," and entrepreneurs who were known as "Strangers" to the dissenters.
The Separatists were in quest of establishing a new colony in America far from the control of the state Church of England.
The 90 foot wooden ship was blown 500 miles off course during the voyage and landed on Cape Cod on November 21, 1620.
One month later, the Mayflower docked off the coast of what would become Plymouth, Massachusetts.
**Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony referred to his group in his Journal as "pilgrimes," but the term Pilgrim was not applied to these people until the early 1800s.
JFK ISSUED STATEMENT ON BIRMINGHAM CHURCH BOMBING 50 YEARS AGO TODAY
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) Fifty years ago today, September 16, 1963, President John F. Kennedy issued the following statement in response to the previous day's bomb explosion at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama which took the lives of four African-American girls.
"I know I speak on behalf of all Americans in expressing a deep sense of outrage and grief over the killing of the children yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama.
It is regrettable that public disparagement of law and order has encouraged violence which has fallen on the innocent.
If these cruel and tragic events...can only awaken this entire Nation--to a realization of the folly of racial injustice and hatred and violence, then it is not too late for all concerned to unite in steps toward peaceful progress...
Assistant Attorney General Burke Marshall* has returned to Birmingham to be of assistance...and bomb specialists of the FBI are there to lend every assistance in the detection of those responsible...
This Nation is committed to a course of domestic justice and tranquility--and I call upon every citizen, white and Negro, North and South, to put passions and prejudices aside and to join in this effort."
Burke Marshall
Assistant Attorney General
*Burke Marshall (1922-2003) was born in Plainfield, NJ. He served in the US Army intelligence corps during WWII and received his law degree from Yale in 1951.
Marshall worked 10 years at the Covington and Burling Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in anti-trust law and was appointed assistant attorney general by RFK in 1961.
From 1961-1964, Burke Marshall was head of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. He died at his home in Newtown, Connecticut.
SOURCE
"Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963," United States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1964.
THE MAYFLOWER LEFT ENGLAND SEPT 16, 1620
Plymouth, England (JFK+50) The English merchant ship, Mayflower, with 102 passengers on board, departed 393 years ago today, September 16, 1620, bound for Virginia.
Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor
by William Halsall
Pilgrim Hall Musuem (1882)
The passenger list included a number of religious dissenters**, who referred to themselves as "Saints," and entrepreneurs who were known as "Strangers" to the dissenters.
The Separatists were in quest of establishing a new colony in America far from the control of the state Church of England.
The 90 foot wooden ship was blown 500 miles off course during the voyage and landed on Cape Cod on November 21, 1620.
One month later, the Mayflower docked off the coast of what would become Plymouth, Massachusetts.
**Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony referred to his group in his Journal as "pilgrimes," but the term Pilgrim was not applied to these people until the early 1800s.
