Hatred of Catholics led some to cheer JFK's assassination: Jarvis DeBerry

[RandySF]

On Nov. 22, 1963, my home state of Mississippi was, like every other state in the South, solidly Democratic. And yet, according to my American History teacher, who was standing before a class in Columbus that day, when the intercom blared that President John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, had been assassinated in Dallas, her students responded with applause.

Imagine: Americans cheering the death of their own leader. Students whose parents almost certainly identified themselves as Democrats whooping it up that the leader of that party had been killed. My teacher, Judy Morris, was telling that story to another Mississippi classroom nearly 30 years later to illustrate the virulent anti-Catholic hatred that pervaded the South. She said her own grandmother, who given Ms. Morris' age must have been born in the late 1800s, had eventually reached a point where she could be cordial to black people. But the Catholics? No, sir. She could never stand the Catholics. And didn't mind saying it.

Understand how shocking that story was for a black boy raised in Mississippi: You mean there were some folks here reviled more than black people? Or at least as much?

Ms. Morris was a great teacher, and I heard what she said, but I didn't fully comprehend the strife she was describing until a couple years ago when I took the time to read the introduction to the King James translation of the Bible. To many Christians, the King James translation is the only "real" Bible there is; everything else is a poor imitation. Imagine, then, picking up the book you rely upon for moral and spiritual guidance and being confronted with a harshly worded polemic at those "Popish Persons" working to keep the masses "in ignorance and darkness." That's what the translators of the Scriptures write to King James.


http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2013/11/hatred_of_catholics_led_some_t.html

[Hekate]

1. My mom, a Catholic born in 1924 in Colorado, told me how much the KKK reviled Catholics

Consider when and where she grew up. It is shocking to think of it today, but it was real.

As for the applause in some places in the South when JFK died -- I remember hearing about that too, told sotto voce by friends in high school right after JFK was murdered. It was and was not hard to believe; that is, it was horrible to imagine, but we had already seen the television footage of civil rights strife and ugliness, and we knew the racists hated him like poison.

We've seen the ugliness toward Barack Obama, and some of the language used is identical: treason, usurper, loyal to a foreign ideology. I have feared for his life the entire time since his nomination and election. There would be Americans who would cheer this president's assassination, too.

[Drunken Irishman]

3. Way more, sadly.

I don't fear for Obama's life much because I believe security has improved so much since '63. But then, maybe I'm naive in that regard.

There is no doubt there are a great deal Americans who would love to see him dead and it is absolutely chilling. He's a brave man. No doubt about it.

[Drunken Irishman]

2. My grandparents grew up Catholic in Mormon Utah...

They were alienated, isolated and discriminated against. It's much better now, but they were called Papists, devil worshippers and insulted for praying to statues and Mary.

[pnwmom]

4. There are examples of anti-Catholic bigotry almost every day on DU.

This post about Pope Francis is the kind of thing that frequently appears:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4078445


I don't see any difference between it and the kind of bigotry that you'd see in the KKK or among other anti-Catholic groups.

[Hekate]

6. I know, pnwmom, and it distresses me very much to see it here. nt

[ancianita]

5. Where I lived, the hatred was just for East Coast Liberals. Boomer youth mostly loved Kennedy.

I was young, shocked, grieving, and it was mostly the older WWII people who hated the president. All around me were responses like, "Glad they killed that bastard," or "One liberal down, a million to go," or "I'm glad he's dead."

Any young people who were glad -- and there weren't many where I lived in Florida -- were parroting the minority of parents who had voted for Nixon.

[RagAss]

9. Thanks for sharing.

[FreakinDJ]

7. Glad you posted the truth

[RagAss]

8. We knew this in the Northeast....

As a Catholic in the first grade, we were told by adults and even teachers that there were celebrations all over the South in the weeks that followed. We were even told there were parades in small southern towns to celebrate. We had no way of knowing what was true or not(there was no internet to verify back then), but everyone I knew held these beliefs well into early adulthood and some even till today.
Looking at the way things are today - I have no doubt it was a greeted with joy by the vast majority there.