It seemed so simple to John Kennedy during the 1960 campaign. If elected, he promised, he would end racial discrimination in federally aided housing "by a stroke of the presidential pen." But months went by without the stroke. Negroes grew impatient, took to mailing him pens as sarcastic reminders. Newsmen questioned him about the delay at several press conferences. On the President's visit to Los Angeles last August, the local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality greeted him with placards: PICK UP THE PEN, MR. PRESIDENT.
But since he already had...
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