Report to the American People on Civil Rights
President Kennedy delivering his speech from his desk in the Oval Office
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| Date | June 11, 1963 |
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| Time | 8:00–8:13 PM ET |
| Duration | 13:24 |
| Venue | Oval Office, White House |
| Location | Washington, D.C., United States |
| Coordinates | 38°53′52″N 77°02′11″W / 38.8977°N 77.0365°WCoordinates: 38°53′52″N 77°02′11″W / 38.8977°N 77.0365°W |
| Theme | Civil rights |
| Website | Report to the American People on Civil Rights, 11 June 1963 |
The Report to the American People on Civil Rights was a speech on civil rights, delivered on radio and television by United States President John F. Kennedy from the Oval Office on June 11, 1963 in which he proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The address transformed civil rights from a legal issue to a moral one.
In the address, Kennedy explained the economic, educational, and moral dimensions of racial discrimination. The President further announced that he would be submitting legislation to Congress to ensure equal access to public accommodations, education and to address other aspects of discrimination.
From the onset of his term, President John F. Kennedy was relatively silent on the issue of African-American civil rights in the United States, preferring executive action to legislative solutions. He was cautious not to distance the South, marked by substantial segregation and racial discrimination, by infringing upon States' rights. He also wanted to avoid upsetting members of Congress, as he was already struggling to secure their support for most of his domestic programs. However, Kennedy's position on civil rights had begun to evolve during the Freedom Rides of 1961, during which blacks traveled along segregated bus routes in the South. Though he dispatched federal marshals to guard against the racial violence of the events, he publicly stressed that his actions were rooted in legality and not morality; American citizens had a constitutional right to travel, and he was simply enforcing that right. Regardless, several activists encouraged the President to discuss the "moral issue" of civil rights in American society. According to aide Harris Wofford, Kennedy felt that he was the strongest supporter of civil rights to ever hold the presidency and was irritated by such appeals. Wofford advised him, "What [President Dwight D. Eisenhower] never did was to give clear moral expression to the issues involved. The only effective time for such moral leadership is during an occasion of moral crisis. This is the time when your words mean most. Negro leaders fee sorely the absence of any such statement."
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