My husband was in 2nd grade. An announcement was made on the PA where he went to school about the shooting, and school was closed down for the day. His mom came to collect him. He remembers the days after as tense and anxious.
I was listening in on one of the online classes my school holds today (I’m the tech person who is responsible for their smooth operation), and the instructor asked his students if any of them were around for this event (these are older students, but none old enough to remember). He compared what happened in the aftermath to what’s happening now with this latest election. In addition to the shock to the system that occurred with the assassination, the nation needed to get used to, in short order, an entirely new leader for the country. While of the same political party, the new President couldn’t have been more different in looks, tone, attitude and methods. And there was no time at all in which to adjust.
Also, the shock of Kennedy’s assassination cannot be underestimated outside of this country, as ThelmaLou mentioned. Last year I was in Belgium and we happened to drive through a traffic circle near Bruges that has a sign which points to a street and small memorial dedicated to him nearby (there are several of these places/memorials in Belgium, one in the Netherlands and in many other foreign countries as well). This prompted me to try to think of any streets and/or memorials named for any non-Americans in this country that have happened in my lifetime (which would be the past 55 years), and I couldn’t think of a thing. Maybe someone else can point to something, but to me it’s a sign of just how big an event this was globally.
I was in 2nd grade. We were let out of school early and I remember seeing Johnson being sworn in and thinking “wow, he’s REALLY old!!!” Being New Englanders and being Catholic, Kennedy as president was a big deal. But mainly I was sad because everyone else was sad-- didn’t really comprehend the gravity of the situation.
OMG, you were in Dallas?? Holy shit. What a shock wave that must have been! The city’s reputation took a hit after that for a long time. Adlai Stevenson had been pelted with eggs a short time before in Dallas. We lived in upstate New York, but were planning to move to Texas. I didn’t know what we would find down here.
The Kennedy assassination had a big impact on me. I was in 4th grade, Catholic school, classroom right next to the office of the Mother Superior and school principal. She walked in to inform us that the President had been shot and everyone please pray for him.
So I dutifully said my prayers along with the rest of the class, but I was thinking to myself that, well, he’s the President, of course he will be fine.
Then Mother Superior walked in again and told us the President was dead. Absolutely shocking. Wait! He’s the President! How could he die?
That’s when I learned that death comes to everyone. Being President won’t protect you from that. Nothing will.
Third grade, sitting at an outside bench during lunch. One kid at the next bench was miming shooting the president: holding up a hand and saying “Here’s Kennedy” and pointing the index finger of his other hand like a bullet and going “Pewww!” I was disgusted at this but had no idea why he was doing it. When we went back to the classroom our teacher told us the news and sent us home. I have no idea how that asshole kid at the next bench found out.
Fifth grade. One of the boys who went home for lunch came back to the classroom early and told us Kennedy had been shot. We didn’t believe him, but a few minutes later our teacher came in and told us.*
My aunt called that night, crying hysterically. Every adult I knew was devastated.
In terms of the impact on other countries – that same aunt went to Italy every few years to visit family. She got in the habit of taking rolls of Kennedy half dollars to give as tips, because the coins were so treasured there.
Just thinking about this reminds of other ways in which the world has changed. My fifth grade was in a mobile classroom (if you’ve never seen one, picture something like a very wide mobile home that was outfitted as a classroom). My school did not have a cafeteria, so those of us who took the bus to school ate at our desks. The classroom doors were unlocked, and although a nun might show up unexpectedly every now and then to be sure we were behaving, we were mostly unsupervised for that hour. I can’t imagine that happening today.
I was in art class, senior year in HS. We were allowed to listen to our transistor radios and heard the news. I told the teacher and she sent me down to tell the principal, who then made the announcement over the PA system.
I was a freshman in college, and Architecture class was getting ready to start. One of the students ran in and yelled something about the President being shot. But this kid was a practical joker, and everybody’s reaction was “Yeah, yeah, tell us another one.” Then the instructor came in and announced that class was canceled, due to Kennedy being shot.
Back in my rooming house, only one kid had a TV in his room, a little B&W set in a little room on the tope floor. For the next few days, we periodically would huddle around that TV to get the news. I remember seeing Oswald being shot, live.
Back home, my mom hadn’t had the TV or radio on that day, and she went shopping. She noticed other women in the supermarket had been crying. Bewildered, she stopped one woman and asked her why the hell was everybody crying. That’s how she found out. Then my dad came home early from work.
I was in fifth grade, and had been sent to speak to the Principal. Sister Mary Claver had heard the news and sent me to tell each teacher. We did not have a PA system.
Only a toddler, no memory of my own. Mom was a rural teacher at the time, the school did not even have a telephone someone drove up from the superintendent’s office to notify them. I am told it was gloom for days on end.
Then 1968 came along and by then I was conscious enough to get it that it was a world of violent rage out here, whatever it was about.
I was two. I still don’t get why it was such a big thing, why it drives so much of the American consciousness. As noted, it wasn’t like the President had never been assassinated before.
Not in living memory. It was not a world full of terror and bombings and riots (that came later). No one had ever heard of a suicide bomber. Beheadings?? No way!
We weren’t constantly in virtual touch with thousands and millions of people around the world at every moment. Like I said earlier, you got the news from the newspaper, the radio, and a half-hour black and white newscast at dinnertime.
I’m sad that you can’t picture a world that innocent. But it was.
And something else- those other assassinations took place before any kind of mass media. When Lincoln was killed, it was months before the whole country found out.
In contrast, when Kennedy was killed, the whole world knew it in minutes. Schools were closed, people were sent home from work. As I said in the OP, a movie in ARGENTINA, for Pete’s sake, was stopped and everyone went home. ARGENTINA? On the other side of the world?
And we only had three TV networks, but all of them switched to coverage of the assassination. Most people, families, people at work, in stores, huddled around their black and white sets for the duration. MILLIONS of people saw Jack Ruby shoot and kill Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV. I saw it- I was 15. Then came the days of lying in state, and the funeral and burial. Glued to the TV. A shared event.
I think ThelmaLou nailed it. Even the most recent assassination before Kennedy, William McKinley in 1901, occurred when there was no radio. People in most cases read about it in the newspapers the next day, and it still probably took several more days for the news to spread across the world. There was no real-time reaction like there would be in 1963.
I lived on Sylvan Ave between the Fort Worth Pike and Jefferson Blvd. Graduated from Sunset High; saw a ton of movies in the Texas Theater. I used to know Oak Cliff like the back of my hand—a lot of that drama played out within a mile or so of where I used to live. At one time I could draw a map of Oswald’s travels from downtown to the Texas Theater; can’t do it anymore. You’re right about Dallas; outsiders considered it a hot bed of hatred for quite a while. I left Texas shortly after the assassination although not because of it. I still think leaving Texas was the best thing I ever did for myself.
I stand somewhat corrected. I could have done without the rude and unnecessary word “bullshit,” however.
Anyway, I didn’t mean “the whole country from coast to coast.” I meant EVERYONE in the country, virtually ALL people living in the continental United States. People in rural areas, small towns, no radio, no phone, kwim?
I was a freshman in college. I had already finished my classes for the day – Fridays were a light day for me – and I was back in the dorm when the news came out. There was only one 19 inch B&W TV in the basement rec room of the dorm, so most of us huddled around radios on windowsills. As others have noted, news spread quickly but not instantaneously as it does today. Some students were spending the day studying in the library and didn’t know about the assassination until later in the afternoon. I’ve seen the footage of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald so many times since then that I don’t remember if I saw it live or only after the fact. Same with the funeral procession. Seating was limited in that basement rec room and with a few hundred of us in the dorm, that meant most of us spent some time watching TV but more time listening to the radio.
The only event I definitely remember watching on that little TV was the Beatles appearing on the Ed Sullivan show early the following year, 1964. I think we were all crowded into that rec room for that one.
