Revisiting JFK on YouTube

On Sep­tem­ber 26, 1960, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon appeared in Amer­i­ca’s first nation­al­ly tele­vised pres­i­den­tial debate, an event wit­nessed by some 70 mil­lion Amer­i­cans. Although radio lis­ten­ers thought that Nixon hand­i­ly won the debate (48% v. 21%), tele­vi­sion view­ers gave the edge to Kennedy (30% v. 29%) – the even­tu­al win­ner of the elec­tion. On that Sep­tem­ber night, pres­i­den­tial pol­i­tics entered the tele­vi­sion age and nev­er looked back.

Thanks to the YouTube Chan­nel spon­sored by the JFK Pres­i­den­tial Library, you can now revis­it this his­tor­i­cal moment, along with oth­er key footage from the Kennedy pres­i­den­cy. Tak­ing a tour of the chan­nel, you will find Kennedy giv­ing his inau­gur­al address, mak­ing the strong case for civ­il rights, con­fronting the real­i­ty of nuclear war, and urg­ing Amer­i­ca to win the race to the moon.  The JFK video col­lec­tion now appears on our grow­ing list of Intel­li­gent YouTube Chan­nels.