I was 8 years old when John F. Kennedy was assassinated

[CatWoman]

all around me there was nothing but tears.

I still remember that.

Today in History: November 22


1963: President Kennedy's assassination

President John F. Kennedy is shot twice while he traveling in a presidential motorcade through downtown Dallas, Texas, U.S. The 46-year-old president was rushed to a hospital but was pronounced dead within half an hour. Lee Harvey Oswald, an order filler at the Texas School Book Depository, was arrested and charged with the murder. Oswald was shot dead two days later by another gunman.

[MaryMagdaline]

1. My first death in the family

Age 4. It still brings pain.

[FakeNoose]

2. It was a horrible day, one of the worst memories of my childhood

I was 12 and in Catholic school the day Kennedy was shot. Of course all the nuns and lay teachers were upset and crying. Special prayers etc., and I believe school was let out early that day. A terrible time.

[Zoonart]

5. I was eleven and I remember it the same way.

The teachers were called out into the hallway and we could hear them crying, then they came back into the classrooms and told us the President had been shot. It was a shock, but not the last one; followed in 1965 by Malcom, and in 1968, Bobby and Martin

[no_hypocrisy]

3. All I understood was a little girl my age had her

Daddy die. I didn't know what a president was.

[Cirque du So-What]

4. I was also 8 years old

School was dismissed a couple of hours later, and as I walked home in a daze, I encountered a news boy, who looked not a whole lot older than me, passing out special editions free of charge. The next few days were marked by surreality and sadness.

[HAB911]

6. I saw more fist fights that day than I have

in my entire life. Some idiot would say, "Good", and BAM!

[Beausoleil]

7. I was 8 years old as well

I was also in Catholic school in suburban Dallas. So it was almost personal.

I remember the weather that day. I remember the anticipation, we knew for days ahead that the president was coming to town. This was a big deal.

One detail I just remembered: some of the nuns had brought in newspaper clippings to class showing maps of the motorcade route.

In so many ways, that day defined the rest of my life.

[Ohiogal]

8. I was in second grade in public school

Our teacher came into our classroom looking as if she’d been crying, and told us the bad news. School was dismissed early that day. (everyone had a mom at home all day back then, so it wasn’t a big deal). I remember a group of us neighborhood kids hanging out that afternoon and feeling disbelief, shock, and sadness. I remember watching the funeral on TV later on.... John John saluting the riderless horse..... I remember it like it was yesterday. Everyone I knew felt sad and shocked.

[Piasladic]

9. not everyone

had a mom at home. I guess some pretended so that no one would get upset.

[John1956PA]

11. I was in second grade also. A live radio news feed abruptly came through the PA speaker.

As an aside, today is the first time since 2013 that November 22 falls on a Friday.

[Golden Raisin]

10. Back when "Breaking News" on the TV screen

truly meant something epic and important. I remember our Principal came on the loud-speaker system to announce the news. When we were sent home from school there was an eerie, hushed silence in the hallways --- nobody slammed a locker door, kids were crying.

[wendyb-NC]

12. I was 9 years old, and I will never forget it.

It was a whimsical sunny Friday. We were putting artistic finishing touches on our written essays, to be displayed on classroom bulletin boards. The following week was the Open House, and the parents would tour the classrooms, chat with the Sister, that taught there.
The embellishments for the essays consisted of a construction paper base sheet, color of the students choice, that would frame the essay, like a picture. We were allowed to get out of our seats and choose needed supplies, such as rulers, paste and art paper. The classroom door was closed, as to not disturb the other students in their classrooms.

I'd just finished mine and Sister Mary Bernard, complimented my work, placing a green star on it. Suddenly the Principal threw the door open, speaking loudly, for our attention, scattering students, who nearly got slammed buy it. She said, " President Kennedy had been shot while visiting, Dallas, Texas., he'd been taken to a hospital." She then directed our class in prayer, then left. Ten minutes later, she returned breathless, and told us that he had died, then she vanished out the door. We were all blown away zombies, it couldn't be real, why would anyone do that, if, now what? I was in shock, numb and scared. So were my classmates. The room was silent. We were dismissed 15 minutes later.

Things felt different after that, I couldn't put a finger on it. It was a persistent thread of sadness, and the society at large felt harsh,
like dark places and flaws were showing up. The light dimmed on the world of people and institutions.

[Raftergirl]

13. I was 6 and remember it

like yesterday. My parents had gone into NYC for the day to see a Broadway Show, so my sister and I were at my Aunt’s instead of school. We were watching tv when breaking news came on. Shortly after that my Aunt sent us to meet my cousin on her way home from school, which was let out early.

The show my parents were to see that night was cancelled and they came home, but didn’t pick us up until the next day.

We all watched everything all weekend and through the funeral including when Oswald was shot.

An interesting side note was that Friday was my 1st college roommates sister’s birthday party and Caroline was at her party. My roommate and her sister were in the nursery school at the WH the Kennedy’s had created for Caroline.

And during our freshman year (1974) when the sister was in high school at private school in NYC she was dated JKF Jr. when he was at Collegiate.

And in another side note - my roommate lived in the same apartment building as John and Martha Mitchell.

It’s a small world.

[nolabear]

14. I was 8 too. Seems there are lots of us.

I was home sick from school. My mother and I watched in shock. I’ll never forget Walter Cronkite crying. I thought the world had ended.

[MineralMan]

15. I was 18 and a college freshman.

As I was leaving the dorm for a Biology 101 lecture in one of the auditoriums on campus, I noticed a crowd of people in the dorm's lounge area, watching the television there. I stopped long enough to understand that JFK had been shot, and then walked to the auditorium where the class was already underway. As I entered, the professor gave me a glaring look for being late.

I walked down to the front of the class and the lectern and announced the news, off mike, in my stage voice. The professor looked at me, as if to ask whether I was telling the truth. I nodded at him. He said, "Class dismissed." and everyone left. I returned to my dorm and spent the rest of the day in front of the television. It was standing room only. In 1963, almost nobody had a TV in their dorm room, so everyone was there, following the news.

[Peregrine Took]

18. I was 19 and a sophomore at my tiny Catholic girl's school in Iowa.

Just came from the language lab in the Annex and walked past a classroom of students from the adjoining Academy. They were all crying. I thought they must have really messed up and were being punished by the Sister.

I didn't know what was going on until I went back to the dorm and went down to the smoker (!) where they were all glued to the tv. Like you, no tv's in the rooms - just hi fi's and radios - so it was nice that we all gathered together.

Everyone was crying, especially one girl who was a huge JFK fan, was unconsolable.

We all called our parents and took the next bus home where we stared at the tv for a week.

What a time that was.

[Tracer]

16. Like it was yesterday.

I was 23 and traveling back to NY from Canada with my sister and brother-in-law.

The radio on the rental car wasn't working and we decided to stop at the Can/NY border store to pick up a few things.

We were joking and laughing when we went to the checkout. The salesperson looked at us strangely and then said "It's a sad day for your country".

Puzzled, we said "What do you mean?" And then she told us.

[CanonRay]

17. A vivid, searing memory

I was in 7th grade.

[bullwinkle428]

19. My Mom was pregnant with me at the time. She had to figure, "What kind

of world am I bringing this kid into?"

[rsdsharp]

20. I was nine, and in fourth grade, in a small NE Iowa town.

Our lunch hour was from noon to 1 PM, and I had walked home, eaten lunch, and walked back to school. The TV in the living room was off as we ate lunch in the kitchen, and I probably would have left before the announcement, anyway. I heard about the shooting from a classmate as we waited on the playground for the bell to ring.

This was the era of TV westerns, where everyone was always shot in the shoulder, and I asked my friend if that was where the President had been shot. He didn't know. I asked what would happen if he died. He didn't know.

When the bell rang, we filed into our classroom, and the next 40 minutes was spent discussing the news of the assassination attempt. Our grade school had a TV, used for educational programming for the 6th graders on Friday afternoons. I assume that on that day it was instead tuned to CBS, where Walter Cronkite announced the President's death at 1:38 PM CST. Without knowing, I assume our principal, Mr. Cole, walked from the sixth grade classroom into the adjoining fifth grade class, and told them the news. He then exited that class room, turned left, and walked 15-20 feet to our room, where he quietly told us the President had died. It was 1:41 PM CST.

School was dismissed early, and I walked home with two classmates in a daze, shuffling through a dusting of snow that had fallen. The next three days were spent in front of the TV. It still seems unreal.

[VOX]

21. The country hasn't been the same since that shocking loss on 11/22/63.

A horrible, horrible day for America, and much of the world as well. Age 14, in 10th grade French class. The teacher read the memo aloud, and wept openly. The first time I experienced acute anxiety. JFK is DEAD? That just can’t be possible! Who would commit such a monstrous act?

The country hasn’t been the same since that fracture on 11/22/63. There is documented evidence that JFK was going to draw down troops and advisors from Vietnam after the 1964 election. To do so prior to the election was deemed a political risk: being judged as “soft on communism” by Republicans, which was a big deal back then.

With JFK only nine months deceased, LBJ and the Vietnam hawks had their faked incident, and Congress gave LBJ the power to wage war as he saw fit. Vietnam, the draft, MLK, Jr. and RFK assassinated, napalm, Nixon, war in Cambodia and Laos, mounting casualties, Watergate, dirty tricks, on and on it goes, with each successive Republican administration bringing greater dishonesty and an increasing willingness to engage in the dirtiest of politics.

I still love JFK, who will always be a personal hero, flaws and all. His murder is one of the darkest events in American history. Sadder still, Americans lost more than a president that day in 1963.

[Kid Berwyn]

22. Word, Vox. Every word you wrote.

When JFK lived, we dreamed big and worked to make those dreams into reality.

[VOX]

23. That shocking event knocked everyone/everything out of balance. We're still reeling.

And as if the assassination wasn’t enough, two days later the utterly surreal murder of Lee Harvey Oswald occurs on live national television.

For the first time in memory, Americans felt like their bedrock institutions had failed them, and that key public officials had possibly skirted the truth, and rushed to judgement. So began the first of the large-scale conspiracy narratives that divide us today. (My devalued two cents worth: Soviets/Cubans, as payback for the previous year’s missile removal.)

Nobody fully trusts much of anything. And clearly, Americans are now more off-balance than ever before.

All this mayhem occurred in the week before Thanksgiving. The holidays that year were some pretty grim get-togethers.

One cannot help pondering today how different our world might be if JFK, MLK, Jr. and RFK hadn’t been so abruptly removed from it.

[Sewa]

24. We had a reset after 9-11

when the country came together. But the power hungry republicans screwed it up.

[VOX]

28. 9/11 was a knockout blow to our country's sanity.

And you’re absolutely right, Republicans used that event to stoke fear and rage in Americans, to great effect— too many of them stopped thinking critically, and closed their minds off to reason and common sense.

Fast forward 18 years, and those same people are embracing fascism, and would prefer to be ruled by a strong-armed dictator, regardless of the consequences.

[Sewa]

25. I was in third grade PE class

when a girl came in and told us the news. I didn’t believe her. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to kill the president. Then I walked out of the gym into the hallway and all hell was breaking loose. I was stunned and froze for a few minutes trying to comprehend what had happened. As with most people a moment I’l Never forget.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

26. I was a sophomore in high school.

When I got out of my 4th period class (French) a friend met me and told me that the President had been shot. I thought it was a stupid joke. It wasn't.

My school did not close, although others in our city (and many elsewhere in the country) did. I don't recall my other classes, but when I went to my English class, 8th period, the last class of the day, the teacher spoke briefly in front of the class. He was appalled that school had not been dismissed. He made a brief mention of what the class lesson would have been, then said that we were on our own. We could read, write in the journals we were supposed to be keeping that semester. He then went to the back of the class to his desk. While I don't think anyone left, I expect he would not have cared if any or all of us had departed.

An interesting side note. While we had a TV at home, my mother, a nurse who worked the 3-11pm shift did not normally have it on during the day. So when she got to the hospital that afternoon she was genuinely shocked to learn what had happened.

Another note. Some kind of survey of what people knew had gone into effect that day. And on November 22, 1963, within a remarkably short time (no more than a couple of hours) more than 95% of everyone knew about the death of JFK. The next time anything close to that number happened was (if I recall correctly and I have not bothered to double check this) the Tylenol poisonings right before Halloween, 1982. Most of the time the percentage of people who are cognizant of a particular story is remarkably small.

Yet another note. I once spoke to someone whose family went camping that weekend in November, 1963. They were, understandably, completely out of touch with what was happening. When they got back home on Monday it was as if they'd entered a completely new reality. Just think about it. They'd missed anything at all about the assassination, the inauguration of a new President, the funeral. Not to mention the murder of the assassin. Wow. This is what alternate reality is all about.

[murielm99]

27. I was also a sophomore in high school.

I wrote about my experience in another thread.

[7wo7rees]

29. I was 6, in 1st grade, in a very small town in Southeast Colorado.

My teacher was called out of the room, came back in crying and told us we were going home, the president had been shot. The following days were spent watching the tiny TV and knowing something had changed forever.

Trump talks about a "coup"..... November 22, 1963 was when it happened.

Does anyone here ever miss a longtime member "Octafish"? I know I do.

I have lived in Dallas since 1969. I try to go every year to Dealey Plaza, on the 22nd. There are always people from all over the world there. The people of other countries seem to know, (better than most Americans) what a loss it was for all humanity.

[Archae]

30. We're practically deifying Kennedy.

In reality, he was a politician, and was willing to compromise and even cave in to right-wingers.

A good example was the Bay Of Pigs.

Kennedy was warned it would be a total fiasco, and it was.
He went ahead with the Dulles fantasy anyway.

Myself? Well, I was only 3 at the time, almost 4, so I don't remember any of those days starting November 22nd.

[samplegirl]

31. I was 7

And I remember my sister was sent home from school.
The world mourned in disbelief in front of a black and white console tv.