Posted on: Sunday, November 16, 2003
COMMENTARY
Kennedy changed how Americans see each other, world
By Richard Port
Former chairman of the Democratic Party of Hawai'i
On Saturday, we will observe the 40th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The question that has often been asked will once again be raised: whether JFK and his abbreviated presidency that lasted less than three years made a difference to America.
I would like to offer one person's answer — my answer — to that question.
In 1956, I was given a copy of JFK's book, "Profiles in Courage," which tells the stories of Americans who sacrificed power, prestige and money to make courageous political decisions. I had no idea who John F. Kennedy was, but I was very impressed by the book and its message.
Later that year, while serving in the Army and running a high fever, I was sent to a base hospital. When I arrived, I became aware that the radio outside the hospital was broadcasting the roll call of the states from the Democratic National Convention.
Adlai Stevenson, who had received the nomination for president the previous day, had decided to allow the convention delegates to select his running mate from two candidates: Sens. Estes Kefauver and Kennedy.
As a boy, I had attended parochial schools and been told that it was unlikely that there would ever be a president of the United States who was a Roman Catholic. Kennedy lost the roll call that day but made a great impression on his fellow Americans, including me.
Four years later, in 1960, JFK campaigned in West Virginia, part of the Protestant "Bible Belt South," and defeated another liberal, Hubert Humphrey, in that state's primary.
Kennedy went on to become the Democratic nominee that year and eventually defeated the GOP's Richard Nixon, demonstrating that a person's religion need no longer be a barrier to America's highest office. Now there are at least four Catholic candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for president, and the stage has been set for other barriers, gender and racial, to fall.
One of my proudest moments was the honor of chairing Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign in Hawai'i. Our multiethnic, multiracial society gave Jesse six of our 13 elected delegates in Hawai'i's Democratic Party presidential caucuses.
In 1961, then-President Kennedy called for Americans to volunteer for overseas service with the Peace Corps, building upon his inauguration's clarion call for Americans to "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
My wife and I quickly volunteered for the Peace Corps, or as some in those days disparagingly called it, "Kennedy's Kiddie Corps."
In late June 1961, the Peace Corps accepted us as its first married couple. After eight weeks of training and a sendoff at the White House, where we had the opportunity to meet JFK, my wife and I were off to Ghana, along with 48 single volunteers, for our two-year stint as English teachers.
As with most Peace Corps volunteers, we returned to America with the realization that we had benefited greatly from our experiences. Ignorance about the rest of the world has always been a problem in America, but this has been reduced because of the experiences of the many thousands of returned Peace Corps volunteers since 1961.
While we were in West Africa in 1961-63, we were asked by our students about race relations in America. Why couldn't colored (the term used in those days) and whites eat in the same restaurant, or drink from the same fountain, or use the same restrooms, or go to the same schools? The fact that there were no satisfactory answers to those and other questions our students asked has led to my lifelong commitment to civil rights.
I am profoundly grateful to former Gov. John Waihee, who appointed me to be one of the first five members of the state Civil Rights Commission.
My wife and I learned two very valuable lessons in Africa: first, to realize how fortunate we are to have been born in America; second, to have a healthy skepticism about what our government tells us, and the rationales our government offers to defend its actions.
Perhaps one example of the latter would be appropriate. In those years, America was telling other countries in the United Nations that China should not be allowed to enter the world body until it demonstrated that it would observe the provisions of the Charter of Human Rights, but that South Africa should be kept in the United Nations to encourage that nation to begin observing the charter.
Ghana and many other nations took the opposite view: China should be allowed to enter, to encourage that government to observe the charter, and South Africa should be removed because it was not observing the charter.
I cannot speak for others, but I can assure you that President John F. Kennedy made a profound difference in my life, even to this day. And if I could have only one wish for a lifetime, it would be that the bullet that struck him down would have missed.
