Dear Commons Community,
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was riding with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally’s wife Nellie when he was fatally shot by Lee Harvey Oswald. Governor Connally was seriously wounded in the attack. The motorcade rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital where Kennedy was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after the shooting; Connally recovered.
Oswald was arrested by the Dallas Police Department 70 minutes after the initial shooting. At 11:21 a.m. November 24, 1963, as live television cameras were covering his transfer from the city jail to the county jail, Oswald was fatally shot in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters by Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby. Oswald was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he soon died. Ruby was convicted of Oswald’s murder, though it was later overturned on appeal, and Ruby died in prison in 1967 while awaiting a new trial.
I remember the day and hour as if it was yesterday.
Our country was never the same!
Tony
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My life was never the same after Nov. 22, 1963 . At 18 I was no longer a kid and just realized America was a deeply flawed country.
you are right the country was never the same….so so sad
Thank you for your comment, Valerie,
Just five years later, we would suffer the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy.
Tony
Here’s my indirect connection to JFK. My mother was the secretary to the Governor of Rhode Island,John Pastore and she went with him when he was elected to the Senate. Pastore and Kennedy were fellow New England senators in the 1950’s. My mother left the job to raise a family before the 1950’s ended. Pastore can be seen next to JFK’s desk in a photograph as he signed the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Just read your concise relating of the events in Dallas 58 years ago; I was 16 years-old then. Recently I decided to finally read William Manchester’s ‘The Death of a President’ which had languished on my bookshelf since 1967. Just today learned that the preposterous Oliver Stone has re-emerged with a follow-up ‘documentary’ on his fictional ‘JFK’. This is very depressing. Thank you for your clear statements.
Dear David,
Thank you for your comments.
I was sixteen at the time also.
Tony