"This was a huge deal in the (usually Republican) African-American community, which switched registration and overwhelmingly voted for Kennedy"

Worth noting that Northern AA's had already been voting Dem since the 1930's.

There's indeed a grain of truth in what you're saying, but the Kennedy mythologizers have built a shiny pearl around that grain.

As it happens, just yesterday I was watching the episode of "Eyes on the Prize" which relates this event. It portrays JFK's call to Mrs. King as a clever way of splitting the difference, supporting King but not openly. The main reaction, according to this account, was that black ministers endorsed JFK from the pulpit.

Which is unnerving in itself, tax exempt status & all.

The Shriver documentary certainly seems to overstate the electoral switch caused by the King call. At that point Kennedy and the Democrats were still trying to have their dixiecrats and civil rights too. But it was an unstable coalition that was bound to come apart, the Republicans could've taken a lead on civil rights under Ike, which would have lead to vastly different electoral coalitions. But they didn't and Nixon took the Southern strategy in '68, leaving us where we are today.

FWIW, Ezra and Grumpy capture well what I remember of the account of this episode in Parting the Waters, the Pulitzer Prize first volume of the history of the King years by Taylor Branch.

Branch is no Kennedy mythologizer, but that's the extent of my info, so I'm surely not trying to play referee here.

Petey, can you point me to more info about the change in northern black voting? All I remember from Branch there is that he said until the King episode, Jackie Robinson's loyalty to voting Republican was hugely influential.

Wonderful post Ezra, this was something I was unaware of, and it broadens my understanding of a time (at 63) that I lived through...thanks!
Carl

To better quantify black voting patterns, here are the percentages of the black vote that went Republican in the last 18 presidential elections:

1936 28
1940 32
1944 32
1948 23
1952 24
1956 39
1960 32
1964 6
1968 15
1972 13
1976 15
1980 12
1984 9
1988 10
1992 10
1996 12
2000 9
2004 11

I think if Nixon won in 1960, we might have seen Nixon lead enough Republicans and Democrats to pass a meaningful civil rights set of laws. Nixon had supported the 1957 Civil Rights Act, which was watered down despite his efforts on the original bill's behalf.

Jackie Robinson was not a fool at the time to support Nixon over Kennedy. Also, watching the Nixon-Kennedy debates in college, I was struck by how much more statesman-like and sometimes liberal Nixon was compared to Kennedy, who wanted to start a war with China over two small islands, Quemoy and Matsu--plus his campaign raving about a non-existent missile gap with the Russians.

The interesting what if is whether Nixon, if elected and pushing successfully for civil rights legislation, may have created a liberal Republican Party that would reverse many of the positions of the Republicans and Democrats in our time.

Sadly, though, Nixon only learned how to be more cynical, more paranoid and more cruelly indifferent to African-Americans as a result of the close 1960 election.

Extra point: If JFK lost Illinois, JFK still won 273 electoral college votes, enough to win the election against Nixon. Just thought I'd throw that one in!

Actually, many northern blacks starting voting Democratic as early as the 1920s. In places like Harlem, West Indian immigrants were key players in aligning the black community with the Democratic machine. Chicago had a Dem and Republican machine (Big Bill Thompson) so blacks there stayed loyally Republican. But the Great Migration effectively severed the connection between post-emancipation African Americans and the Republican Party in much of the country.

Note also that the GOP had essentially abandoned blacks as early as 1870 with the Liberal Republican movement. There were still some pro-black Republicans to be sure - think of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and the Lodge Bill of 1890, which would have seriously enforced the 15th Amendment if a Free Silverite hadn't torpedoed it - but by the time you get to McKinley the GOP had become a business party indifferent at best to African Americans. With blacks completely disfranchised in the Lower South Republicans felt no need to work for the black vote, leaving an entire generation of African Americans with no allegiance to either party. Then came the Great Migration and the gradual move to the northern Democratic machines. Then FDR. And HST. And JFK. And LBJ. And 90% Democratic.

To the extent that the Democratic Party lost the South to racism, the Republicans can have them. I rather belong to a moral Party than in power if those are the choices. When the South loses its racist base, they will be heartily welcomed back.

Part of the issue was also that Nixon's platform on civil rights in 1960 was not really distinguishable from Kennedy's. In large part due to his Catholicism, JFK could not count on the Solid South to the degree that Democratic candidates had in the past, so he had strong electoral incentives to play the issue both ways in order to keep white southerners on his side (especially since most black southerners couldn't vote). Anti-Catholic prejudice was also rampant among blacks as well at the time. Certainly the MLK phone call was smart politics, but to large degree it was a gesture in lieu of more substantive concessions to the civil rights movement.

I don't buy this one bit.

Kennedy and Nixon were tied in the polls from the convention on. There was little movement. And the election went down exactly as the polls predicted it would.

So don't tell me about any last minute surge among black voters.

Be very wary of getting sucked into Kennedy myths. He had the best PR people that any bad President ever had in our history.

Crucial to JFK's victory was the massive vote fraud in Chicago and Cook County. It was Daley's Machine, Sam Giancana's mob, Teamster goons, and other unsavory characters that got JFK something like a 450,000 vote margin of victory in Cook County (not quite up to the level of Stalin or Saddam but in the ballpark). Most of the shenanigans couldn't be caught by recounts and there were plenty of guys making sure no serious investigations took place. As was said at the time, "When a Cook County election is stolen, it stays stolen." How fitting that Hizzoner Da Mare decided to name a big fat expressway after JFK.

This was a huge deal in the (usually Republican) African-American community

Others have pointed out how wrong this sentence again. But, it's so misinformed that I wonder why I should listen to anything that you have to say about political history again. This material is covered in any Poli Sci 101 discussion of the New Deal coalition.

Dear Daley:

Illinois was not "crucial" to Kennedy's win. He won the electoral college 303 to 219 and Illinois had only 27 electoral college votes. He could have lost Illinois and still won the election. Now, you throw in Texas . . .