Oral+History

__**Research:**__ On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding a car through Dallas, Texas. He was going to speak to the public there. The assassination of Kennedy put the nation in turmoil; everyone couldn't believe that their energetic, young new president could have been shot and killed. About an hour after Kennedy was pronounced dead, the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, was sworn in.

However, the killer of Kennedy is still not known for sure. On the day of the assassination, authorities believed it was Lee Harvey Oswald that killed him, and on November 23 he was charged with the murder of Kennedy. But, Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner in Dallas, killed Oswald that day before anyone could be sure that it was Oswald who killed the president. So, still no one knows for sure who assassinated JFK.



"John F. Kennedy: assassination." //American History//.ABC-CLIO, 2011. Web. 2 June 2011.[]

Garcia, Jesus, et al. //Creating America: A HIstory of the United States//. Evanston, Illinois: McDougal Littell, 2002. Print.

What is your most prominent memory about the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated? I was in a public elementary school, and I remember the teacher left the room and I knew there was something going on but we didn't know what, and our teacher came back in the room, sobbing. She had a hankerchief that she was holding to her face and was just crying, and I had never seen a teacher like that before. Then, she told us that the president had been shot.
 * __Interview of my mom (Joy M):__**

What were your parents’ reactions to the assassination? At home, we just watched television. We were glued to the TV and pored over the newspaper. My family was just stunned. There was such a heavy sorrow.

What was your personal reaction to the assassination? I was little, so I just felt totally confused. I could not understand this idea that the president was shot. I kept thinking "Why?"

What was the media coverage of the assassination of JFK like? Do you remember anything about how it was presented on TV or anything about the newspaper the next day? I just remember that the assassination was the only thing in the news. It was everywhere and that's all anybody talked about for what seemed like weeks.

How long did it take for the thought to sink in that the president had actually been shot and killed? It took a long time because the idea was so horrible, and it seemed so unreal. A big part of the news coverage was everyone's reaction to the assassination, and we were just filled with shock, horror, and disbelief.

What impact did the assassination have on your life? It taught me at an early age that people could be completely evil, and that put a kind of fear in me.

How do you look back on the incident now after almost 50 years have passed? Now it still hurts me because I think fairly often, actually, about what kind of president Kennedy would have been and what different directions he might have taken our country. I wonder if many, many things could have turned out differently if he could have lived. He was such a young man, so intelligent. He was learning as he was president; at the time he represented a kind of new hope for our nation, but then that was cut down. I try not to idealize that too much, but yet I still wonder if we might have taken a better direction for the foundation of what our country is today.

By doing my NHD project on JFK and the Cuban Missile Crisis, and being interested about him for my whole life, the assassination has always been an interesting topic to me, and it was great to get to interview my mom about it. My mom's account of the assassination gave me a first-hand view at the incident and allowed me to learn a lot more about it. The assassination completely shocked the nation, and I got to learn about the reactions of people who lived through it and what it was like for something terrible like that to happen, which is very interesting.
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