Fifty-seven years ago today we lost this President

[ailsagirl]

Last edited Sun Nov 22, 2020, 08:30 AM - Edit history (1)

[ucrdem]

1. A Strategy of Peace

Inspirational excerpts:

[pazzyanne]

4. I often wonder where we would be today is JFK had not been assassinated. nt

[ucrdem]

8. I'd like to think we'd be a little further along than we are now

like maybe a light year further

[lame54]

2. Check your math

[Rhiannon12866]

3. Jack and Jackie:

[Sherman A1]

21. Great pic

For those interested, the aircraft is at the USAF Museum in Dayton, Ohio. Preserved with the other Presidential aircraft. We went there last year and saw the whole collection.

[roamer65]

5. 57 years ago today

1963-2020.

[Sloumeau]

13. I know that this is correct because I was born the year that he died,

and I am 57 years old.

[roamer65]

27. I was born the month his second term would have started.

[disalitervisum]

6. Cannot thank you enough for your post

Yes, your math was off by one year, it's been 57, but let's not focus on that. Instead, let us consider the promise of hope, the legacy of peace, the desire for reconciliation, and above all, the recognition of our common fate.

The Kennedy family has long urged its following to ignore this day, and rather celebrate May 29, the birthday of our guiding light and hope for the future.

May we all live in peace.

[Cha]

7. ..

And, I know where I was.. I wasn't even into politics but I pulled over to the side of the road in Phoenix, Arizona bc I was crying so hard.

I got to my mom's home in Tempe and Dan Rather was on the news talking about it.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

9. I remember that day. I was in college.

Someone said the President's been shot, and I grabbed a newspaper to read the headlines.

It was horrifying.

I still have the newspaper.

[rainin]

10. I still have the newspaper, too. The Dallas Morning News from that day. n/t

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

15. I was in ninth grade.

The night before JFK was assassinated, Alan Funt's "Candid Camera" was asking people on the street if they could name the vice president. Of course, no one could.

The strangest thing was that my parents didn't talk about it at all. Even after I told them that I had watched on live television Lee Harvey Oswald getting shot by Jack Ruby. It was like the whole event never happened. Weird.

[BHDem53]

11. I was in class at my grade school and we were told that we were being dismissed

early. My dad was a big JFK fan. It's the only time I remember seeing him cry.

[Sherman A1]

12. Same here

They put the news broadcast through the PA system and we were one scared group of kids.

[Ford_Prefect]

16. I was in 5th grade and the teacher went very quiet. They didn't tell us until it was leaving time.

None of us knew what to think except for the seemingly obvious "The Russians did it" rumors. We were very cold war in suburban Philadelphia when this went down.

My parents were deeply shocked. They were big fans of JFK and the perspective his administration represented.
It reminded me of the Cuban missile crisis when it seemed that every moment was waiting for worse news.

Regime change by those with another agenda for us did not occur to me then but it seems inescapable now. I don't claim to know who did it or how exactly it was arranged. I have some ideas of what may have lead to it and what some of the driving forces were. I know it was much more complicated than one lone wolf with an attitude and a weapon. Too much of what I have seen in my life confirms that.

[dweller]

19. 4th grade

and got an announcement also no idea what it all meant til I got home and saw my mom crying and the nonstop news with Walter Cronkite ... it’s burned into my memory now
😕

✌🏻

[Sherman A1]

20. Same grade as you

As I mentioned, they kept us in school, but there was no more classes for the day, we just listened to the PA system.

[Raster]

14. ...

[yellowcanine]

17. 7th grade science class. They played the radio announcement over the intercom.

I was a news junkie even then and listen to the radio all weekend.

[Lonestarblue]

18. The saddest part is that we still have those who think killing over politics is acceptable.

In 57 years, instead of the lone shooters we have evolved into mass shooters and domestic terrorist groups like the Proud Boys, who have threatened violence against Biden. The violence then and the violence now stems from racism and white anger. Are we never to escape its clutches and accept that skin color has nothing to do with who we are as human beings?

I suppose we will never know the truth behind JFK’s assassination, but I have never believed that it was simply one lone man with a grudge. What a turbulent decade the 60s was.

[ailsagirl]

23. I've never believed it either, Lonestarblue

I believe that, after his assassination, things have never been the same for our country.

[lastlib]

25. I have come to subscribe to the theory that a Secret Service agent accidentally fired the fatal shot

Saw that on a documentary several years ago, and it seems more plausible than anything else I've seen.

Of course, we'll never know the truth.

[hlthe2b]

22. A favored painting (for me) of JFK.

How different things might have been had we had, Abraham, Martin, and John (and RFK in the final verse)

[Larissa]

24. So many indelible images: "A promise unfulfilled."

I was eleven-years-old on the day that President Kennedy was assassinated. There are some things about those days that remain in my memory as fresh as if it happened yesterday. It was the only day, in my entire life, that I ever witnessed people sobbing -- men, women, white, black, brown -- openly in the street. When Lyndon Johnson was sworn in on Air Force One -- just hours after Kennedy was killed -- Jackie Kennedy stood next to him wearing the pink suit stained with blood. I vividly remember that she had blood all over her legs. (At one point, in the Zapruder video, President Kennedy lurches and there appears to be a portion of brain matter that flew to the hood of the trunk of the presidential limo. Jackie immediately crawled out of her seat and retrieved it.) There was real concern that the Soviets had assassinated Kennedy and that we were about to go to war over it. Two days after Kennedy was assassinated, Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald -- President Kennedy's assassin -- on live television.

[TuxedoKat]

26. I was very young

But I remember when Pres. Kennedy was shot then a few days later my dad and I saw Oswald shot on live tv.

[Hotler]

28. I was in 3rd grade class and the whole world stopped.

[peggysue2]

30. The world did, indeed, do a full stop

I was a kid but my mother's side of the family idolized JFK and Jackie. My father, never a big Kennedy fan, cried when he heard the news. Teachers, too. Even my dentist with whom I had an appointment that day. I recall walking into the office and the receptionist saying the doctor was too upset to take patients. She teared up when she said it.

I may not have fully realized the significance at the time but the adults around me falling apart was burned into my brain and sensibility.

Things are never the same after that. Innocence, naivety lost? I don't know. But the world shifted into a darker space.

[electric_blue68]

29. Oh, I love that Official Portrait! When I toured...

the WH the Christmas that The Clinton's had themed "The American Craftsman" - each of the biggest trees had Artisan Crafters working in one medium each - wood, metal, ceramics, fiber etc and in the long hallway flanking the Rose garden those trees had crafts from school kids...

We turned at one point on the first floor, and suddenly there was that JFK Portrait! I think I almost gasped.

I was in 5th grade in '63. I knew it was horrible, but It'd be longer before I understood the real loss.

And oh, the Pall of misery of the Adults was astonishing (I didn't know any astute teens at that point)! Watched much of it on TV, etc.

By coincidence the next summer we visited, and stayed with one of my relatives and family who lived right outside of DC proper.
We did visit the original White Picket Fence grave with Eternal Flame. I know I still had that B&W photo at least a few years back.

[ailsagirl]

31. It's a beautiful, and rather haunting, portrait

I saw it in person, many years ago. I was surprised that it wasn't a very large painting-- and of course Jackie's portrait alongside it.

Thanks for sharing your memories.

[electric_blue68]

32. You're welcome.

Yeah, I thought it would have been bigger. You're right - it is rather haunting.
Considering the Cuban Missile Crisis I could imagine this image reflecting the gravity of that. Read his American University speech - Summer, or early Fall '63 if you haven't. This portrait reflects that imho. I didn't read the speech till decades later.

Touring the WH is both fun, and serious.

It'll be great to have The Obama's portraits finally up, too!

[Dem2]

33. I remember that day

Oh wait, no I don't, I was only 1.9 years old.