The key word here is "proposed" which means JFK actually got nothing done. The litany of excuses doesn't change that. LBJ was the person who actually achieved something with Civil Rights. If anyone is to be recognized for that, then LBJ is clearly the person to do so. And trying to place the blame for the lack of progress on "racist" Republicans is revisionist history. A small group of Dem Senators held up any Civil Rights legislation for decades. It took LBJ to break up that resistance by democrats.
Shortly after the assassination (11/25/63), LBJ phoned Dr. King to inform him of the status of the civil rights bill and some of the other legislation that had stalled in Congress. The civil rights proposal was still in the House at that time and Congress was preparing to adjourn for the holidays. Nothing more was going to be accomplished for that session. The bill was dead at that time.
JFK meant well but he had little ability - or much interest at that time (note that he never mentioned the bill during his trip to Texas) - in really pushing the act through Congress. Thus the situation at the time of his death. With 1964 being an election year - when in normal times Congress essentially does nothing - there was no chance of the bill getting through. And JFK, I would suggest, was simply not going to risk a potential loss of the South for that bill at that time. It was too risky. Domestically, JFK was a a pragmatist, a centrist and not a liberal; he showed that during his time in the Senate.
It would take JFK's death and LBJ's arm twisting (and more) to get the act through Congress. These claims that JFK gets credit for the bill are simply not historically accurate. LBJ himself ran in favor of the bill when he ran against JFK for the party's nomination. Note as well the risk that LBJ took. He would run for election in 1964 while aggressively pushing for the bill. Despite the strong possibility of losing the South and the presidency. The claim that he was behind the assassination is even more absurd when you realize what he did: he became president after killing JFK (allegedly) and then he risks all of that on the civil rights bill? It's absurd.
Recall that in LBJ's address to Congress and the nation after the assassination he said the "first thing" that had to be done to recognize JFK's legacy was pass the civil rights bill. As he told King in his call, "We just won’t give up an inch." LBJ is a difficult person to defend, to praise; he was a mean, nasty man and the horrors of Vietnam - and the lies and failures - define his presidency. But his accomplishments on behalf of racial justice cannot be challenged.
From the LBJ/King call:
MLK: --because we know what a difficult period this is. [Inaudible]
LBJ: It’s just an impossible period. We’ve got a budget coming up that’s—we’ve got nothing to do with it; it’s practically already made. And we’ve got a civil rights bill that hadn’t even passed the House, and it’s November, and Hubert Humphrey told me yesterday everybody wanted to go home. We’ve got a tax bill that they haven’t touched. We just got to let up—not let up on any of them and keep going and--
MLK: Yes.
LBJ: --I guess they’ll say that I’m repudiated. But I’m going to ask the Congress Wednesday to just stay there until they pass them all. They won’t do it. But we’ll just keep them there next year until they do, and we just won’t give up an inch.
MLK: Uh-uh. Well this is mighty fine. I think it’s so imperative. I think one of the great tributes that we can pay in memory of President Kennedy is to try to enact some of the great, progressive policies that he sought to initiate.
LBJ: Well, I’m going to support them all, and you can count on that. And I’m going to do my best to get other men to do likewise, and I’ll have to have y’all’s help.
http://www.lbjlibrary.org/lyndon-baines-johnson/timeline/a-conversation-between-lbj-and-martin-luther-king-jr/
