"Let Us Begin" - A JFK35 Podcast Series

On August 28, 1963, 250,000 people of different races, religions, and economic backgrounds convened on the nation’s capital for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The man behind organizing the event – Bayard Rustin – is profiled in a new Oscar-nominated film “Rustin.” In this episode, we speak with producers of the film, Tonia Davis and Bruce Cohen, and historian Dr. Clayborne Carson of Stanford University.

In February 1963, President Kennedy said, “A man may die, but an idea lives on.” In this episode, we look at the legacy JFK left behind and how some are continuing the spirit of his work. We speak with NASA astronaut Victor Glover who represents the new generation of space explorers and is set to be the first black man to travel to the Moon. We also have a conversation with JFK Presidential Library Director Alan Price and JFK Library Foundation Executive Director Rachel Flor about their work preserving President Kennedy’s legacy for generations to come.

President Kennedy’s trip to Texas was meant to rally support for his programs and policies and lay groundwork for the 1964 election. But instead, something happened that changed the course of history: the president was assassinated. The world seemed to stop as John F. Kennedy’s state funeral was arranged. This episode brings you into the White House in the aftermath of the assassination and historian Fredrik Logevall looks at the trip to Texas and how the country - and the world - mourned the president.

Sixty years after President Kennedy’s administration, fewer than 1 in 5 people in the United States have a living memory of the President. But his legacy continues to live on in those generations that have come after him. In this episode, we speak with the next generation of leaders who will help carry the torch left by President Kennedy. This episode features interviews with Emily Cherniak, founder and executive director of New Politics, and two returning Peace Corps volunteers, Keevon Baten and Alejandra Garcia.

In 1963, President Kennedy came home to Ireland, the land of his ancestors. During that visit, he called upon the Irish to take their place among the world’s peacemakers. In the decades that followed, Ireland would experience first hand the difficulty of peacemaking. Sixty years after Kennedy’s visit, the country would live up to Kennedy’s challenge as a global peacemaker. In this episode, Ireland Tánaiste Micheál Martin T.D. and Good Friday Agreement negotiator and JFK Profile in Courage honoree Monica McWilliams reflect on JFK’s legacy in Ireland. New York University professor Marion Casey discusses Ireland’s more recent connection in the White House with President Biden’s election in 2020.

On the heels of his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, JFK traveled northward to Ireland, where his great-grandparents emigrated from in the 19th century. The first Irish Catholic president, JFK’s visit was both meaningful for him personally and a rousing and significant event for the people of Ireland. We’ll hear about the impact of his trip and speak with Dr. Catherine Healy, Historian-in-Residence at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, about JFK’s travels in the country.

In the summer of 1963, JFK arrived in a divided Germany with the recent construction of the new Berlin Wall nearly two years earlier. President John F. Kennedy spent his entire administration in a “twilight struggle” with the Soviet Union including averting possible total war during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Historian Tim Naftali takes us from JFK’s Presidential Campaign to his final foreign trip to West Berlin. The Atlantic staff writer and Cold War expert Tom Nichols explains how JFK’s Cold War legacy has continued on through today.

In 1963, President Kennedy gave a speech at American University outlining “a strategy of peace” on how the two superpowers, the U.S. and Soviet Union, could back off the precipice of total nuclear annihilation. In this episode, we look back at the speech with historian Fredrik Logevall and people who were there on campus. We also interview former Secretary of Energy Dr. Ernest Moniz about JFK’s legacy when it comes to nuclear arms and national security. We also look at JFK’s other legacy of peace with an interview with the 21st Director of the Peace Corps Carol Spahn.

Black Americans, particularly in the South, were denied their right to vote, with poll taxes, voter ID laws, literacy tests, intimidation, and mob violence. By 1963, the Kennedy administration was prepared to act to expand the access to the vote, though Kennedy himself would not live to see the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act.

This episode looks at where voting rights were in 1963, and at how the fight continues today as some states expand the franchise and others seek to restrict it, with interviews with Dr. Peniel Joseph the Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values, and Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas, Austin , and JaTaune Bosby Gilchrist, Executive Director of ACLU of Alabama.

In 1963, President Kennedy would make decisions that would reflect on his lasting legacy. It would also be a year that he would never complete after becoming the fourth sitting U.S. President to be assassinated on November 22, 1963. In this special series, we will look at some of the President’s key trips and policy decisions from 1963 and how the legacy of those decisions continue to live on today. 

Since the Massachusetts Bay Colony was established, Boston has been described as a “city on a hill” or a city to be looked to as an example for others. President Kennedy drew from the same material when he left for Washington D.C. In this episode, we look back at some of Boston's notable mayors who left their mark on the original “city on a hill” including President Kennedy's grandfather, John Fitzgerald. We also look ahead to Boston’s future under new mayor Michelle Wu.

President John F. Kennedy was the first president to take live televised questions from the press on a regular basis and he would provide the model for what would become the modern television presidency. In this episode, we’ll take a look at Kennedy's relationship with the media at news conferences and have a conversation with members of today’s White House press corps about how different presidents have approached their relationships with the press once in office.

It has been 60 years since President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963. In this episode, we’ll hear how far the United States has come since Kennedy signed the landmark legislation, and just how far it still has to go in guaranteeing equal pay for equal work.

Sixty years ago, President John F. Kennedy passed the Equal Pay Act of 1963. It was one of the first federal anti-discrimination laws that dealt with wage discrimination on the basis of sex. While Kennedy was the man who signed the bill into law, it was only because of a women-led movement that the act became a reality.

The JFK Library plays an important role as a place where original documents, photographs, audio, film, and other artifacts from John F. Kennedy's presidency are preserved. While the pandemic interrupted some of the Library's normal activities, archivists used the time to reduce a large digital backlog of materials waiting to be published online. Archivists Stacey Chandler and Abbey Malangone provide an update from the archives it returns to post-pandemic operations.

Presidents’ Day is a day to celebrate past presidents and American history. In this episode, we speak with two “living history interpreters” who have spent years portraying historical figures to the public. Audrey Stuck-Girard portrays Abigail Adams and other 18th century figures and Bill Barker portrays President Thomas Jefferson.

President Kennedy faced several major environmental threats during his presidency from the widespread use of dangerous chemicals in farming to private developers buying up pristine natural habitats. Award-winning author Douglas Brinkley discusses his new book, Silent Spring Revolution, about the woman who led the modern environmental movement influencing the Kennedy administration and others that came after. This episode also revisits a conversation with Cape Cod National Seashore superintendent Brian Carlstrom.

Sixty years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, today’s world leaders can apply lessons learned to potential future nuclear crises. Former Obama Administration Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, Executive Director of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University Alexandra Vacroux, and former Pulitzer-prize winning reporter and author Jonathan Kaufman discuss potential crises ahead and how the Cuban Missile Crisis’s legacy remains relevant.

After the United States and Soviet Union survived the Cuban Missile Crisis and its immediate aftermath, the next steps for the two superpowers would be critical. This episode looks at Kennedy’s "strategy of peace" speech at American University and the limited test ban treaty negotiated between Khrushchev and Kennedy, that some say saved the world a second time. It looks ahead at the positive and negative steps made towards Kennedy’s vision of a world with fewer nuclear weapons and what challenges today’s leaders face involving the spread of nuclear weapons.

John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev reached an agreement about the Cuban Missile Crisis on October 28, but the crisis wouldn’t end there. Fidel Castro, angered by Nikita Khrushchev’s decision, threatened a serious setback in the negotiations to remove all offensive weapons - including tactical nuclear weapons - from his country.