The Michigan Union and the Peace Corps candidate john f. kennedy on the steps of the union
thousands of um students waited for hours in front of the union to see kennedy.
t 2 a.m., October 14, 1960, three weeks before the part of your life to this country, I think, will depend before the election, encouraged by UM student enthu- A election, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy the answer whether a free society can compete. siasm, Kennedy proposed “a Peace Corps of talented addressed a densely packed crowd in front of the I think it can. And I think Americans are willing to young men and women, willing and able to serve Michigan Union. In a three-minute impromptu speech, contribute. But the effort must be far greater than their country . . . as an alternative or as a supplement he challenged them to contribute a part of their lives we have ever made in the past.” to peacetime selective service.” to serve this nation by helping people in developing Kennedy spent the night at the Union. In the morn- On March 1, 1961, a few weeks after his inaugura- countries throughout the world. Kennedy asked, ing, crowds followed his motorcade up State Street. tion, Kennedy created the Peace Corps through an “How many of you who are going to be doctors are Within days, UM students, supported by faculty and executive order. Sargent Shriver, first director of the willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or the Michigan Daily, held a mass meeting and mounted Peace Corps and JFK’s brother-in-law, wrote in 1964, engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the a campaign that obtained hundreds of signatures “It might still be just an idea but for the affirmative Foreign Service? On your willingness . . . to contribute from students willing to serve overseas. Six days response of those Michigan students and faculty.”
on the day before jfk’s election, um was one of the first judith and alan guskin (at left) peace corps training sites. and other student members of the group at left (both a newly formed um campus group, guskins circled) completed americans committed to world training in late 1961 for responsibility, presented kennedy the first thailand program. with petitions supporting his pro- in the next fifty years, posal for student foreign service. almost 2,500 um graduates kennedy aide ted sorensen had served abroad as peace greeted them as “the first corps volunteers. um stu- platoon of the peace corps.” dents continue to respond to kennedy’s challenge.
photos courtesy of david giltrow and the bentley historical library