John F. Kennedy

A wonderful Typed Letter Signed with important legislative content. Congressman John F. Kennedy responds to a constituent, the Reverend Robert K. Jones Jr. of Maynard, Massachusetts, clarifying a question of his amendment to a bill regarding federal aid to parochial schools.

Kennedy pointedly made a clear distinction that his amendment would only reimburse companies that provided school bus transportation services, while not funding “Church schools,” as his recipient had apparently inquired about. Kennedy underlines pertinent language for emphasis, and adds a holograph postscript, “My amendment only extended the coverage of Section 6 of the Bill that passed the Senate.” Fine, in Kennedy’s earlier handwriting style, on House letterhead dated March 14, 1950.

The recipient of this letter, Rev. Robert K. Jones Jr., was a Methodist pastor in Cochituate, Massachusetts during the 1950s and 1960s, years of great social change in America. In a largely white community, Rev. Jones was the first to welcome black members to join his congregation in Natick, Mass. Jones was a strong advocate of the civil rights movement and opposed the Vietnam War, preaching about such issues regularly. It was voices like the Rev. Jones’s, all across America, who helped reshape political thinking on civil rights issues—significant issues that became the forefront of legislation ultimately passed by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.