JFK: RC

The video centers on the critical turning point for the presidential candidacy of John F. Kennedy when he addressed the religious issue in a 1960 speech to a gathering of Houston’s Protestant ministers. Theodore Sorensen, who drafted that speech for Kennedy, places it within the context of American anti-Catholic movements, culminating in the 1928 defeat of Al Smith. The program ends by looking at whether Catholic candidates for political office still face religious bias.