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.Historians, rhetoricians, political scientists, and biographers still discussanother sense of timing related to Kennedy’s speech—its timeliness as a rhe-torical intervention during a crucial historical moment.Theodore Sorensenclaims that by speaking out on June 11, Kennedy placed himself at the head ofthe civil rights revolution.By June 11, Sorensen argues, the country was justlistening for a presidential message on civil rights when it had not been listen-ing during the prior weeks and months.Sorensen also suggests that JFK’smessage represented the fulWllment of a historical and rhetorical development,that it completed his prior, progressive rhetorical and political action on civilrights.148 The president’s speech eVectively directed itself toward kairos, Sorensensuggests, because it came at just the right moment: Kennedy did not pledgehis power and prestige suddenly but rather only when the nation was ready tohear his message, which stands as a timely fulWllment of his civil rights com-mitments as president.Arthur Schlesinger also asserts that Kennedy’s moralargument was a timely instance of rhetorical action.Schlesinger argues againstcontemporary critics who indicted JFK for not delivering it sooner, claimingthat “the timing was a vindication of his approach to mass education.” LikeSorensen, he claims that Kennedy had prepared the ground for the speech sincebecoming president, yet “did not call for change in advance of the moment.”149The speech was delivered at the appropriate moment, Schlesinger claims, asthe events in Birmingham had given the president the nation’s ear: had Kennedydelivered his civil rights message earlier, it would not have received signiWcantor favorable national attention.Rhetorical critics Steven Goldzwig and Georgej o h n f.k e n n e d y a n d t h e m o r a l c r i s i s o f 1 9 6 3■155Dionisopoulos claim that JFK’s speech was a timely response to the historicalmoment, since the events at Tuscaloosa presented him with “a golden oppor-tunity to make his case.” Historian Carl Brauer argues that June 11 was “anexcellent moment” for the president to address the nation on civil rights, andpolitical scientist Mark Stern asserts that Kennedy eVectively “seized the op-portunity” provided by Governor Wallace and the events in Birmingham todeliver his speech.Even political scientist Bruce MiroV, one of Kennedy’ssternest critics with regard to civil rights, argues that the speech was “timely”and “appropriate.”150Yet none of these writers describes in detail why prior critical momentsin the civil rights movement did not constitute opportune moments forKennedy to address the nation.Neither do they explain fully why waiting forthis moment of heightened conscience was the timely thing to do.Each sug-gests that events had suYciently raised the national conscience by mid-Juneand that waiting to address the public at that moment was a timely decision.Such claims require a careful, complex account of historical events, publicknowledge, and public discourse.Goldzwig and Dionisopoulos provide adetailed account of the development of historical events and of Kennedy’s dis-course yet do not explore the ways in which the president’s speech might havebeen untimely.Schlesinger points to the Xat reception that met Kennedy’s civilrights message on February 28 as evidence that June 11 was the right time tomake a public moral statement.Yet he does not acknowledge that the June 11speech was a more vigorous, sustained ethical argument that drew upon a fa-miliar moral vocabulary: these important variables clearly account for muchof its rhetorical force.Claims that President Kennedy’s speech was timely alsorequire a complicated understanding of what constitutes timely rhetorical lead-ership, an understanding missing from existing written accounts.We can question the existing explanations of Kennedy’s speech as timely onexistential grounds—that is, whether or not June 11 represented a uniquelycritical moment that made presidential discourse particularly Wtting.For in-stance, the violence against protesters during the 1961 Freedom Rides was morebrutal than against demonstrators in Birmingham.Arguably, the FreedomRides received media attention equal to the Birmingham crisis and arousedsimilar levels of national and international outrage.Why was it not timely forKennedy to speak out then? But perhaps more important, we can questionexisting accounts of JFK’s speech as directing itself toward kairos from a uniquelyrhetorical perspective.Why should waiting for national sentiment to maturebefore speaking out be judged unequivocally as timely? Or, is what some iden-156■The Modern Presidency and Civil Rightstify as a timely spoken response necessarily an optimum form of rhetorical lead-ership? By waiting for what some considered to be the opportune moment,Kennedy let pass a critical moment in some protesters’ relationship to the na-tional government: as such, his speech was in another sense too late.ButKennedy’s own understanding of civil rights as a moral issue (presumably arequirement for making a public moral argument) only recently had developed.In classical rhetorical theory, the concept of kairos involves epistemology, notonly discourse.That is, in a sense JFK’s speech can be judged as timely becauseit was only at that moment that he had achieved knowledge of race as a moralissue.Still, we can interrogate the timeliness of Kennedy’s civil rights message,or any rhetorical act, with other crucial questions.To what extent can we judgea speaker who waits for the opportune moment to be courageous? Might aspeech judged as “ahead of its time” during its own era be considered timely ata later historical moment? These questions—in addition to others that probethe very notion of speaking at the opportune moment—should lead us to in-terrogate simple, unambiguous evaluations of the timing of rhetorical action.Finally, despite any shortcomings in timing, moral understanding, or argu-ment, Kennedy’s speech clearly marked the beginning of a new public vocabu-lary on civil rights.Lyndon Johnson maintained the moral commitment in hispresidential rhetoric that Kennedy had established, providing the mainstreamcivil rights movement with the moral high ground throughout the 1960s.Inaddition, as a consequence of Kennedy’s rhetoric, the vocabulary of “law andorder” would no longer stand without question both as a pretext for keepingpeace and for resistance to racial integration
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