As the world witnesses increasing religious division, we should remember the role of West Virginia in advancing religious tolerance in America.
May 10, 2024 marks the 64th anniversary of the historic 1960 West Virginia presidential primary which John F. Kennedy won in a landslide after spending four weeks campaigning throughout the state.
His political opponent was Hubert Humphrey, but his real opponent was anti-Catholicism.
Before 1960, the presidency was only for Protestants. After Kennedy’s narrow victory in the November 1960 general election, such was not the case. But the pathway to Kennedy’s Democratic presidential nomination went through West Virginia. Kennedy had to prove that he could get Protestants’ support and what better way than to win the primary in a state that had only a 4% Catholic population? Only Utah had fewer Catholics.
Today, it is difficult to imagine the extent at that time of anti-Catholic feeling in the nation. A 1959 poll showed that 20% of voters would not support a qualified Catholic for the nation’s highest office. As Kennedy would later note “It’s pretty hard to run against the Protestant Reformation.”
In 1928, the crushing electoral defeat of Al Smith, the first Catholic nominated for president by a major party, confirmed the “unwritten law” of US politics: no Roman Catholic can get elected president. Smith would bemoan that “the time hasn’t come when a man can say his rosary in the White House.”
The 1960 West Virginia presidential primary became a referendum on religion. As a Parkersburg newspaper editor observed, “West Virginians will either bury their prejudice, or they will bury John Kennedy.”
Three factors help explain Kennedy’s landslide victory carrying 50 of the state’s 55 counties.
- He came. During his four weeks campaigning in the spring of 1960, Kennedy visited towns and villages across the state. To show his familiarity with West Virginia, he noted that he knew the difference between Charleston and Charles Town.
He confronted. After initially avoiding the issue of his religion, he chose to raise the issue directly on the campaign trail. He questioned why 40 million Americans be denied the presidency on the day they were baptized. His argument was reinforced by his status as a decorated war hero. Having served his country in war, why should he be denied the opportunity to hold the nation’s highest office in peace?
- He promised. While some Catholics were upset with his strong support of separation of church and state and an apparent promise to privatize his faith, such a stance reassured voters who harbored concern about a “divided loyalties” of American Catholics.
The Charleston Gazette described the primary results as a “devastating victory” that should prompt reconsideration by those party professionals who held Kennedy “at arms length because of doubts that a Roman Catholic could be elected to the White House.” Kennedy friend and aide, Ken O’Donell, took the importance of the primary a step further when he claimed that this one primary allowed Kennedy to “lick the religious issue in a showdown test that certainly must be a monument in American political history.”
In this case the electoral contest conducted in the mountains of West Virginia did more than just propel a young senator to a Democratic presidential nomination, it helped change the face of politics by advancing religious tolerance.
