Question

In a paragraph of seven to ten sentences, answer the following questions in relation to this passage from John F. Kennedy's 1963 Civil Rights Address: What word does Kennedy seek to redefine in this passage? Why is it necessary for this word to be redefined to his audience? What long-term cultural change does Kennedy expect to make through the redefining of this word? "One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free. We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is the land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes?"

Answer 1

The word that Kennedy seeks to redefine is “Freedom”. The reason why a redefinition of such word is necessary is that white Americans did not realize that for “Freedom” to be truly “Freedom” it has to apply to all Americans, not just the white, or rich, or male, or educated ones. The long term cultural change Kennedy wants to trigger by redefining this word is awareness that without social justice for all groups of society, it does not matter what its noble ideals are, they lack legitimacy as they are conditioned to arbitrary circumstances such as race, gender, social status, religion, etc. Since they are conditioned by arbitrary restrictions that empty such notions of their true meaning, they lose their universal legitimacy and intrinsic value.