There are huge differences between the government Kennedy took over in 1961 and that Obama takes over in 2009. Kennedy took over a relatively stable and prosperous government with respect abroad. Obama takes over a failed economy, a badly divided electorate, and distrust of America in many countries. But there are similarities as well. The New Frontier was full of government officials who wanted to get America moving again--a reaction, not entirely justified, to what they saw as passivity under Eisenhower.

Young veterans, in particular, felt this country could do anything when it pulled together, and those of us in government--and beyond it--wanted new initiatives in many areas not unlike Obama's plea for change. The concept of the New Frontier was an expression of America's ability to overcome and resolve problems and to move ahead into uncharted territory with confidence. Taking up the Soviet challenge in space by promising to put a man on the moon was another expression of confidence in the country, a goal that made Americans feel proud of themselves. Most important, young people were excited by the possibilities of a better world then as they are today.

Hope and confidence that a rational pragmatic approach can find better solutions is hugely important. The risk is always that it will crash against the realities of politics. The key to leadership in our democracy is to keep those hopes alive while avoiding the briar patch of political necessity. For any administration, there will be some issues in which the desire for change at times clashes with and at times is advanced by that rational pragmatic approach. In Kennedy's presidency, one of those areas was civil rights.

(Note: Nick Katzenbach is the author of the new book Some of It Was Fun: Working with RFK and LBJ.)

When Kennedy took office it was obvious that civil rights was going to be a high priority and that Bobby's Justice Department was the center of the storm. The problem was not devising a legal answer to the problem; the Supreme Court had declared the answer provided in the constitution to be the law of the land. The problem was how to get southern politicians to accept that answer. Our federal system of democratic government is founded on the belief that government officials, federal, state or local, will comply with the law. Where the odd official does not, he will be removed from office and, if appropriate, prosecuted for his malfeasance.

But in civil rights in the '60s we faced a different problem: massive resistance of state officials from the governor to the local sheriff to obey the law. For decades the constitution had been largely ignored. Many southern state officials asked, What right did the Supreme Court or the President have to upset the custom of decades?

These southern officials relied, with reason, on the fact that Congress was unlikely to enact a law which would seriously affect the status quo. Following the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, Congress had passed two civil rights bills with great difficulty--neither of which amounted to a hill of beans when compared with the problem of racial discrimination. Southern legislators who held many committee chairmanships in both House and Senate had the power to thwart any serious legislation, especially in the Senate where the 67 votes to cut off a filibuster were impossible to obtain. The Justice Department could and did add lawyers to bring voting rights cases, joined the Legal Defense Fund in school desegregation cases; and sought to mediate disputes in Birmingham and elsewhere. But all of this took time, and blacks who demonstrated for their rights were being beaten and arrested for disturbing the peace. The administration was constantly pressured to protect demonstrators, but we had only troops to fall back on and were reluctant to use them to do the job of local law enforcement, especially since once troops were withdrawn, the situation remained unchanged.

President Kennedy was reluctant to push for legislation he was confident would not be passed or legislation that would be so compromised as to be useless. Some saw this as a reluctance to disturb the power of powerful southern legislators - Democrats from the solid south. I am sure there were those in the White House who felt that way, but I don't think that was a factor in JFK's thinking. He didn't want to sacrifice or delay other legislation for a cause in which he could not prevail. And he felt another compromise accomplishing little was worse than delay.

Eventually, some gains were made. One major reason was that Dr. King, John Lewis, Andrew Young, and other leaders of the Movement, both well-known and less well-known, simply did not give up. Also important was the stark contrast between peaceful demonstrators and the racists who beat them and police who arrested them. Television brought the violence into the homes of those who lived in the north and west, where even those who supported segregation found they were not prepared to tolerate the brutal beating of peaceful demonstrators. Finally, college students joined with civil rights groups in protest, heading south to help register black voters in dangerous circumstances. Together, these circumstances gradually awakened Americans to the reality of their country's caste system.

The riot at Ole Miss when we registered James Meredith, which at the time seemed a disaster, also, in a strange way, helped. Many southerners began to see that continued violence was not a solution and blamed Governor Barnett for letting things get out of hand. That fact was not lost on Alabama Governor Wallace when his state university faced integration. The absence of violence and Wallace's capitulation led President Kennedy to seize the initiative and call for effective legislation. He brought to the White House leaders in various professions--business, law, religion--where he, Johnson, and Bobby spelled out the facts and the need for legislation if violence was to be avoided on an even larger scale. While he never lived to see the success of his actions, Johnson carried them through: The 1964 Act passed both houses and survived a filibuster.

There are lessons that the Obama team can learn from the struggle for civil rights but they may not be obvious. Civil rights legislation was essential to achieving respect for equal rights and it required extraordinary persistence, patience, and, restraint by all involved. Change is not easy to accomplish. Some thoughts on achieving it are:

• First, when there is strong opposition by a segment of the community to proposed policy, legislation is important. A court decision or attempted executive decision making is not always persuasive.

• Second, the bipartisan nature of the 1964 Act was important because of its implication of wide support and finality.

• Third, Kennedy and Johnson's refusal to accept a compromise which would only delay the necessary resolution is instructive. It does not suggest that compromise is wrong, on even strongly held views. But it does suggest that compromise on a fundamental principle of democratic values embodied in the constitution does not promote those values. In current terms, then, one can compromise, for example, on the methods of health coverage but not on its universality. Or on some of the actions needed for economic recovery but not on the use of torture as a means of interrogation.

• Finally, Congress is responsive to the views of constituents, and voters can understand rational argument even on complex subjects.