On January 20th, 1961, war veteran, Pulitzer prize winner, and thirty-fifth president of the United States of America, John Fitzgerald Kennedy gave his Inaugural Address. An inaugural address is a combination between a ceremony where the new president is inducted into office and their first speech to the people as president. The first speech is supposed to inform the people of their intentions as a leader of the country. Kennedy’s speech was filled with strong and poetic but also simple language with a resemblance to President Lincoln. His words followed a theme of unity and peace but also self-defense. His words were reminiscence of the famous line, “By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall,” from The Liberty Song, written by one of the Founding
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Discrimination of colored people through segregation laws began to be intolerable and people rose up to protest. One of the more famous protesters was Rosa Parks. During the 1950s it was required by public transportation to segregate colored people from the white people on the bus. Parks went against this rule by not leaving her seat for a white man, for this she was arrested with charges of Civil Disobedience. Her arrest inspired others including the leader of the Civil Rights movement Marin Luther King which lead to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The Boycott lasted from 1955 to 1956 and received lots of media attention which was beneficial later in the movement. A landmark law case of THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT was held in 1954, Brown v. Board of Education in which the Supreme Court declared that separate educational facilities for black children were inherently unequal. This ruling challenged the idea of racial …show more content…
Both of these subject were worries of the people so they had to be addressed but they are also about foreign policy which is subject that history.com documented as area of inexperience when compared to Vice President Richard Nixon who he ran against in the election. This may have influenced him to cover this topic to prove himself to American people which after all is one of the purposes of an inaugural address. Kennedy starts his address off talking on this topic, “For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.” Although it is poetic language Kennedy is clearly speaking about the nuclear weapons. The Atom bomb was first dropped on Hiroshima killing over 80,000 people on August 6, 1945. Four years later the Soviet have their first successful atom bomb. The Hydrogen bomb tests successfully for the first time in 1951. Two years later the Soviet have their own successful Hydrogen bomb. This was important topic to cover since it stuck fear into the hearts of the people. Kennedy talks about this fear, “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” This does more then address the American people’s fear but the world’s and Kennedy is displaying of brotherhood, peace and comfort which are good makes for foreign
Discrimination of colored people through segregation laws began to be intolerable and people rose up to protest. One of the more famous protesters was Rosa Parks. During the 1950s it was required by public transportation to segregate colored people from the white people on the bus. Parks went against this rule by not leaving her seat for a white man, for this she was arrested with charges of Civil Disobedience. Her arrest inspired others including the leader of the Civil Rights movement Marin Luther King which lead to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The Boycott lasted from 1955 to 1956 and received lots of media attention which was beneficial later in the movement. A landmark law case of THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT was held in 1954, Brown v. Board of Education in which the Supreme Court declared that separate educational facilities for black children were inherently unequal. This ruling challenged the idea of racial …show more content…
Both of these subject were worries of the people so they had to be addressed but they are also about foreign policy which is subject that history.com documented as area of inexperience when compared to Vice President Richard Nixon who he ran against in the election. This may have influenced him to cover this topic to prove himself to American people which after all is one of the purposes of an inaugural address. Kennedy starts his address off talking on this topic, “For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.” Although it is poetic language Kennedy is clearly speaking about the nuclear weapons. The Atom bomb was first dropped on Hiroshima killing over 80,000 people on August 6, 1945. Four years later the Soviet have their first successful atom bomb. The Hydrogen bomb tests successfully for the first time in 1951. Two years later the Soviet have their own successful Hydrogen bomb. This was important topic to cover since it stuck fear into the hearts of the people. Kennedy talks about this fear, “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” This does more then address the American people’s fear but the world’s and Kennedy is displaying of brotherhood, peace and comfort which are good makes for foreign