by Paul Eliefrom Georgetown University
Busy Day at the Office
The famous photograph of John-John Kennedy underfoot in the Oval Office was taken fifty years ago: October 10, 1963. Alan Stanley Tretick took the photograph. It was a momentous day all round: President Kennedy was preparing for an off-the-record meeting about how the White House should respond to black citizens’ voting-rights drives in Birmingham and racist whites’ violent response. Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko had just left the Oval Office after a meeting on the nuclear test ban. In the meeting on Birmingham, Kennedy was told about a bumper sticker spied on the street in the city: Kennedy for King — Goldwater for President.
Taylor Branch, who tells the story in Pillar of Fire, will be our guest in the Georgetown’s Faith & Culture conversation series on November 18.
