Jfk's Inaugural Address

JFK's Inaugural Address

On January 20, 1961, on the east side of the United States Capitol Building, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy addressed the people of the United States and delivered one of the most powerful and influential speeches to ever grace the ears of our great nation's citizens. This inaugural address was so influential that Pope Paul VI "reread the text numerous times over the years" and his 1967 encyclical "echoed its themes and language" (Clarke 6). Also noted by Clarke is former White House Aide Arthur Schlesinger in his 1965 memoir of the Kennedy administration, A Thousand Days, where Schlesinger goes on to say that "the energies that Kennedy released, the purposes he inspired, the goals he established would guide the land he loved for years to come." Kennedy's speech was so compelling that Senator Barry Goldwater, former leader of the Republican Party's conservative wing, commented "God, I'd like to be able to do what that boy did there" (Clarke 7). In my opinion, our adversaries, either political or otherwise, have no choice but to be moved by a piece of literature as momentous as that of President Kennedy's inaugural address.

President Kennedy's inaugural speech had many purposes but most importantly it gave him positive recognition. The speech was written to encourage the American people to get actively involved with their country. It also reassured them that it was not a contest that he won but rather a chance for a new beginning. In addition, this speech

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reassured the American voters that they made the proper choice in electing a president and informed a nation that it was on the verge of dramatic change. In one such verse from Kennedy's speech, [he] demonstrates his acknowledgment of the people's desire for powerful change and reinforces his commitment to provide such change to the American people by saying "Let the word go forward from this time and place, to friend and foe

alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans - born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage - and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights [...]" (Kennedy, 1961).

Within his speech President Kennedy not only touched the hearts and minds of the American people, but those of other global nations as well. Not only is he sensitive to the plight of his own nation's citizens, but he also acknowledges the calamitous events that plague the people outside the borders of the United States, as demonstrated by this quote: "To those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of