TALLAHASSEE, FL. (WTXL) - 1963 an era of hope and hatred. A time when America was at a crossroads both at home and abroad. The Civil Rights movement was taking shape along with nuclear advancement. John F. Kennedy, the youngest president in office, was poised to lead the country during this critical time but on one cold November day in Texas, hope and Kennedy were gunned down.
CBS News Anchor Walter Cronkite delivers his famous broadcast, "From Dallas Texas the flash official. President Kennedy died at 1p.m. central standard time, 2 o'clock eastern standard time. Some 38 minutes ago."
For many Americans, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 remains one of the most traumatic events in memory. President Kennedy was fatally shot in Dealey Plaza traveling with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie, in a presidential motorcade in downtown Dallas Texas.
President Kennedy had traveled to Texas in an effort to shore up support in the state ahead of his reelection campaign in 1964.
TCC History Professor, Dr. Baglione says this was a critical juncture in Kennedy's presidency, "The 1960's were a pivotal moment in U.S. history and not because of some of the reasons we think of, the social revolution of the 1960's but because of two factors. One domestic, which was the change in Civil Rights and the other is foreign. That of course was the Cold War."
Dr. Baglione says, "He put the issues out there. He put the Civil Rights issue out there. He put the poverty issue out there. He put the arms control issue out there.
Kennedy may have had his detractors, but no one expected what happened on November 22nd.
According to Dr. Baglione, "When it happened imeadiately perhaps just like today, people started thinking how could this happen? Why could this happen?"
According to the Warren Commission report, President Kennedy was shot by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald. Since the assassination, there have been several conspiracy theories as to who killed John F Kennedy and why?
Oswald did have a connection to the Soviet Union. He lived in the Soviet Union and married a Soviet citizen. Two days after the President was gunned down, the Nation suffered another shock, when the primary suspect in the assignation, Oswald was shot on live television.
In the blink of an eye, the course of a nation had been changed by an assassins bullet.
A plaque sits at the top of the grassy knoll of Dealey Plaza. It features the closing remarks of a speech Kennedy was supposed to deliver that day.
"We in this country, in this generation, are by destiny rather than choice the watchmen on the walls of world freedom."
A speech he never got to deliver.
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