Message for the Commission on Civil Rights' Third Annual Conference on Schools in Transition.

[Released February 25, 1961. Dated February 24, 1961]

Dr. John Hannah, Chairman

Commission on Civil Rights

The Motor House, Williamsburg, Virginia

Please extend to all the participants of your Third Annual Conference on Schools in Transition my best wishes for a constructive session. The two previous conferences which the Commission has sponsored on the problems of school desegregation have been notable contributions to our national need for better understanding of this vital matter.

It is a continuing contribution for you to bring together for an exchange of views the men and women responsible for maintaining our public schools and for carrying through the process of desegregation.

Let me here pay tribute to these educators-principals, officers of school boards, and public school teachers. The Constitutional requirement of desegregation has presented them with many new responsibilities and hard challenges. In New Orleans today, as in many other places represented in your three conferences, these loyal citizens and educators are meeting these responsibilities and challenges with quiet intelligence and true courage. The whole country is in their debt for our public school system must be preserved and improved. Our very survival as a free nation depends upon it. This is no time for schools to close for any reason, and certainly no time for schools to be closed in the name of racial discrimination. If we are to give the leadership the world requires of us, we must be true to the great principles of our Constitution--the very principles which distinguish us from our adversaries in the world.

Let me also pay tribute to the school children and their parents, of both races, who have been on the frontlines of this problem. In accepting the command of the Constitution with dignity they too, are contributing to the education of all Americans.

Cordially,

JOHN F. KENNEDY