[422] Kennedy was the first of six presidents to have served in the U.S. Navy,[423] and one of the enduring legacies of his administration was the creation in 1961 of another special forces command, the Navy SEALs,[424] which Kennedy enthusiastically supported.[425]
Kennedy's civil rights proposals led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[426] President Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy's successor, took up the mantle and pushed the landmark Civil Rights Act through a bitterly divided Congress by invoking the slain president's memory.[427][428] President Johnson then signed the Act into law on July 2, 1964. This civil rights law ended what was known as the "Solid South" and certain provisions were modeled after the Civil Rights Act of 1875, signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant.[429]
Kennedy's continuation of Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower's policies of giving economic and military aid to South Vietnam left the door open for President Johnson's escalation of the conflict.