Was anyone out there alive and aware when JFK, MLK and RFK were shot?

[Taverner]

I know it was horrific - but what did you feel? What did your friends feel? Your parents? Your co-workers?

I was born in 1970, and even OUR generation has those three black clouds over our heads

[Th1onein]

1. I was in elementary school when Kennedy was assassinated.

It was announced over the loudspeaker and the teacher had us get up and form a line, like there was a fire or something. I don't think any of us knew how serious it was, but the teacher was acting like it was a mortal shock.

I'm sure it was.

[southernyankeebelle]

105. I was also in school. In study hall at the time. I was in the 7 grade (I think). I remember

the principle coming on the loud speaker and telling us the president was dead. I remembering crying. When I got home my mother was still crying. Her mother who lived in Italy was crying. She had a picture of President Kennedy up in her home. She had never been to the united states. But she was proud because he was our first catholic president. My mother was pregnant at the time. When my brother was finally born she named him after the president. It really had an effect on us. I remember us living in PA temporily and all the neighbors were very upset. I think the whole country really was in a state of shock. I think the feeling was alot like the lost people experienced on 9/11 or Pearl Habor (I wasn't born then). But even though it happens life moves on. You may never forget (I didn't) but the course of history changed. You think what if this never happened? When would our country look like today? Those are things that run through my mind even today. We lost a great man who really care for the working people in this country. That is what I thought voting for Obama was going to be. It turned out he never even has gone to where the poor live. He never even turned out to be like RFK or even MLK. Those are the true heros of the democratic party.

[villager]

2. Was a kid then, but certainly aware of the latter two asassinations

...and how they affected the adults around me, and permanently altered the future of this country. For the worse.

I've never trusted "official stories" since then -- my whole life, in other words -- and still don't. No matter who the fuck is in the White House.

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. born in 1956 - all saddened me, but I wasn't specifically aware of why at that age -

the tragedy was driven home when watching the various funerals, seeing the family, watching other Americans grieve.

[Boomerproud]

19. I was born in '56 as well.

With JFK I just had the sense that the world was a scary place. With MLK and RFK I was devastated.

[Freddie]

79. Me too (born in '56)

I was really too young to grasp any of it, especially living a very sheltered life in the lily-white burbs. Like all these things happened in my lifetime and I was too much of a dopey little kid for any of it to sink in.
I remember being terrified that my brother (born in '53) would be drafted and sent to Vietnam. Fortunately for him he was still in college when the draft ended.

[HappyMe]

66. I was born in '58. I remember being kind of worried and scared.

We always watched the news together as a family. I asked my parents why everyone good was being killed. They looked shocked and dazed. I think I was worried because I had never seen that look on their faces before.

[Still Sensible]

4. I was in third grade when JFK was killed

but I was pretty aware for an 8yo. Was raised in a home where history and current events were part of the daily discussion... Much more aware five years later. Was at the HemisFair in San Antonio the night Bobby was shot, watching the California primary returns on TV in a hotel. Five years and three events that changed the course.

[madamesilverspurs]

5. I was in high school for JFK.

It was stunning. They made the announcement over the PA, then dismissed us to go home. Hallways full of students, and the only sounds were of crying. The whole family was glued to the BW television, and we saw Oswald shot. JFK's funeral was the first time I'd ever seen my father cry; he was a lifelong Republican, but he was really thrown by the assassination.

In '68 we were living just outside LA. When MLK was killed I remember feeling as though someone had knocked the wind out of me. With RFK, we were watching the convention on TV and I got the creepiest feeling. I told my mother that I didn't want to watch any more, that "they" had killed RFK's brother and "they" wouldn't let Bobby live. Some time later, Mom came upstairs, woke me up and told me what had happened. It was damned awful.

All those feelings came roaring back when Reagan was shot; I was certainly no fan of his, but...

[shraby]

6. That was the end of pretty much everything great about this country. I was in my 20s when

those things happened and since then I've watched this country go downhill more and more every year. Is there a bottom? I'm beginning to doubt it.

[nevergiveup]

7. My reaction to John Kennedy's assassination was shock/dis-belief.

My reaction to both Bobby's and Martin's assassinations was a combination of fear and anger. I was in my late teens, early twenties. It was an extremely tense time.

[Rowdyboy]

8. 2nd grade when JFK was shot-the school crossing guard who told me was thrilled....

At home I asked my mother and she said we should be sad, very, very sad. My grandfather took me to the barbershop that afternoon and none of the old men were talking, just listening to the radio.

I was 14 at a sleepover at my cousins when RFK was assassinated. I woke early and heard the tv from the next room. I just remember crying. I believe I was at school when I heard about MLK. It was the year before integration in Mississippi and my mostly white school (to the best of my memory) didn't really react. There was no celebration but there was no mourning either. I just remember it as being a very frightening and confusing time.

[Downwinder]

9. Loss, Shock, Disappointment

[MiniMe]

10. Born in 1957, don't remember much about the JFK assination

We were moving across country then. But I remember watching the funeral at my grandmothers house. I remember RFK and MLK much better. I was still young, but the shock, especially with them being so close together.

[wtmusic]

11. JFK was the most popular president in my lifetime.

Everyone liked him...EVERYONE. He could charm even his political enemies.

His death left a hole in every American's heart that will never heal.

[rurallib]

114. I always thought so also but

somewhere in the 80s I was listening to a panel discussion on the JFK assassination on WGN in Chicago.
This one older reporter said he had been a reporter in Denver at the time and hen word got out, people were cheering and dancing in the street.
Every one one the panel was amazed as was I. Guess all the news didn't get reported back then either.

[Warpy]

12. Sickening shock with all three

When MLK was shot, there was a riot downtown when I was working nights balancing computer crap at a bank. The rioters smashed in and got up two floors. We were on the third.

I'd had the foresight to dress down and park in an alley, so when I got out of work at 3 AM, the gang I saw just flashed me the peace sign and a couple yelled "HEY HIPPIE!"

Downtown was boarded up for weeks before all the windows were replaced.

[LeftInTX]

13. I was in 2nd grade when Kennedy was shot

We had just moved here from Japan.
(My dad was in the Air Force and we have lived there since I was 3)

With the exception of English TV, getting used to life in the states already kinda sucked. We were pampered in Japan. Then Kennedy got shot. Then there were a lot of race riots and then MLK and RFK got shot. For awhile, I kinda thought all politicians got shot. My dad was a pilot and then later went to Vietnam. I kinda didn't expect him to survive. It seemed like death was fairly pervasive at the time. Also it seemed like a lot of famous people died young even if they weren't murdered.

So yeah, death seemed more pervasive at the time.

[struggle4progress]

14. I remember exactly what I was doing at the moment I learned about each of those deaths

though they all occurred while I was still a child. In some sense they were part of an era that was both so exciting it took my breath away and so disheartening that I sometimes wanted to explode in tears of rage. The deaths cast a long shadow over the whole decade. The economy was great, because America came out of WWII perhaps the strongest nation in the world. Desegregation was still a big issue. The space age began. The prospect of nuclear war hung over us like a great cloud. Women began to assert their rights. The country split over the Vietnam war. Environmentalism took off. The untouchable Hoover still controlled the FBI. And the constant red-baiting of the Cold War colored American culture. The Supreme Court was rather liberal back then, issuing forward-looking decisions. It was a roller-coaster of a time. It was sometimes difficult to understand who we were and what exactly we were doing, so a lot of people started to ask hard questions. I think a certain exhaustion set in and cynicism may have become popular: for me, the memory of the assassinations became for a while an excuse for hopelessness, when progress did not continue inexorably as I had expected

[HooptieWagon]

15. I was 6, second grade, when JFK was shot.

I was heartbroken. Story about PT109 was the first adult book I'd read...I had just barely learned to read and struggled to get through the book. Kennedy was a hero to me. I wrote a letter of condolence to Jackie, in crayon. Received a letter in return, my mother still has it. With MLK and RFK I was stunned, but not as completely devastated as when JFK was killed.

[mick063]

16. I remember

RFK was the most memorable for me. I watched much of the coverage right after it happened.

There was only NBC, ABC, and CBS. There was no other choice but to watch it.

The state of the nation was similar to today in one respect. It was polarized, except back then it was the "generation gap". Young verse old as opposed to "Fox" verse "MSNBC", although one could still consider it "left verse right". Primarily because many young folks were drafted to fight a war they ideologically did not believe in.

The young adults took RFK's assassination very hard as he was their best hope to end the Vietnam war quickly. Many believed the war would drag on another decade as a result. I believe this was a factor in the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. More than anything, rage that the most electable anti war candidate was missing and Hubert Humphrey didn't fit the bill relative to RFK.

They knew he was going to lose.

Then a miracle happened. The opinion polls shifted. A majority of Americans began to oppose to the war. It forced the eventual President, Richard Nixon, to adopt a fundamental course change. I believe this was RFK's lasting legacy. He was killed right after delivering a speech that embraced quickly ending the war and the American public adopted it. Almost like paying a final tribute to RFK. Or more likely because his last speech was referenced often and his message finally got through. That was my impression anyway.

Of course that was back in the day when the American public had a stronger influence on politics.


The following clip was three years earlier. It shows how dramatic the political change was. RFK took a much different stance in 1968.

Two years later: From the following link

Meanwhile, a completely oblivious Robert Kennedy returned to Washington. He had no peace feeler to relay, nor did he understand just how angry Johnson was when he walked into the Oval Office late in the afternoon on Monday, Feb. 6, 1967. It was an ugly meeting. Kennedy told the president there was no feeler and said that Newsweek’s source probably came from “your State Department.” (Keep in mind: Neither man knew the true story yet.) Johnson shot back, “It’s not my State Department. It’s your goddamn State Department!” LBJ then launched into a lecture on how the military effort was going so well that the war would be over by summer and that if Kennedy continued his calls for negotiations, “I’ll destroy you and every one of your dove friends. You’ll be politically dead in six months.”

[ananda]

17. It was devastating!

It blew all our minds.

[chillfactor]

18. I was an adult when all three of these great leaders were killed...

i cried for days..i can remember where I was, what I was doing, and what I was wearing when I heard the news about each of them

[Blue_In_AK]

37. I cried for days, too,

especially with JFK. It just seemed so impossible. By 1968, with everything else that had happened in the intervening years, I was just supremely pissed off.

[SheilaT]

20. I was in high school in 1963.

Aside from the actual shock of a presidential assassination -- and since it had been 62 years since our previous one, we all felt that such things were safely buried in the past -- what most stands out is how nearly everyone was glued to the television for four days. It is impossible for those born more recently to understand this, how the entire country came to a standstill until after JFK was buried.

9/11 is the next such communal event. I say that with no disrespect to MLK or JFK, nor to the widespread news coverage of their respective deaths. But we still had only three networks and the coverage of the two murders in 1968 was in all important ways exactly like the first one.

But by 2001 we had all those cable channels, lots of people had cell phones, and so on. It was possible to broadcast live from NYC and DC simultaneously. I was slightly fascinated that day by flipping through the cable channels and watching as one by one they abandoned their regular programming and went to only covering the events of the day. Even things like the shopping channels, and the cartoon network.

I can highly recommend the book "The Death of A President" by William Manchester. It absolutely captures exactly what it felt like during those four days.

[truedelphi]

60. Thank you for telling your experience.

And great first post! Welcome.

[madamesilverspurs]

84. My memories of that time are in black and white,

even the memories of family. I guess that's one of the ways the horrible reality bled into our lives, eh?

[chillfactor]

21. etched in my mind forever will be little John

saluting his father's coffin......

[Taverner]

98. One of many images that affected generations to come

[libisnota4letterword]

22. I remember too well

I was born in 1944. I was at work at the phone company in Portland, OR, and one of the calls on the switchboard told me about the Kennedy assassination. The supervisors called in extra operators, but after about an hour of silence, they sent a bunch of us home. I walked to the bus stop and saw 100s of people standing in front of stores that had TVs in the windows. Again, eerily quiet. My mother was glued to the TV and she saw Oswald killed. Everyone I knew stayed in front of their TVs right though the funeral.

By 1968, I had married, had had a son, and my husband was in Vietnam. I lived with his parents and was working again at the phone company in Salem, OR. When my MIL picked me up the night Dr King was killed, she was upset, but being a southerner born and bred, I never thought she was unmoved. She was watching TV in June when Bobby Kennedy was killed, and at first, she thought she was watching some rerun of President Kennedy's assassination. Again, she was the one who told me.

She had had a step son in WWII, a son in Korea, and her "baby" (my husband) in Vietnam. She was a red, white, and blue, red-blooded patriotic American, but it depressed her to think that my son would end up in war. He didn't. She actually researched moving to Canada.

I was young and an enthusiastic idealist. I felt like the country had taken a turn down a frightening path, and I still feel that way today. Now I'm old, and while I still hope for the best, I temper that with reality. First ever post, and you probably won't ever read another, but this did bring back memories. It is good to talk to people who have experienced life at other times and in different circumstances.

[kentuck]

32. A great post !

Welcome!

[sabrina 1]

45. Wonderful first post. Welcome to DU. It made me think that there are people who have

witnessed history very much still alive. Your story and all the others above it, are recording of that history. I wonder if someone could compile the memories of those who were alive when those three murders happened and sent this country spiraling down to where it is today?

Eg, I don't recall every reading stories from people who were not famous, but alive when Lincoln was murdered. We live in a house that was built in 1840. I often wonder if the original owner, a farmer, and/or the family, children ever left any memoirs of that period.

Anyhow, thanks for telling your story, it was very moving.

[chknltl]

52. Welcome to the DU libisnota4letterword. GREAT first post, reccomended.

Hopefully we will see more of your posts. (Way-cool name too by the way)

[WCGreen]

23. It was a big deal when JFK was shot because I was in a Catholic Elementary...

My most vivid memory was of the Monsignor taking to the PA system and leading us all in prayer. After that, it was a blur of people crying and the sadness of the parade without the rider.

MLK was shot when I was in fifth grade and we were made aware. I remember being sad while a lot of the parents around me had no problem showing their Glee. It was then I started to become aware that there was something different, something that separated me from most of the adults I knew.

But it was RFK that made me realize that all the adults were missing something, something that they probably couldn't put it into words.

[Contrary1]

24. Great sadness with John, disbelief with Martin...

And after Bobby...a despair that nothing would ever be right again. The fire within me was snuffed out. No one since has come along to rekindle it.

Bobby was special to me. It was the 60's, a time when I still believed my voice mattered. I was living in Indianapolis.

Back then, security was probably the best it could have been.

He was going to speak at, of all places, a shopping center. My best friend; Stella and I, broke through the "barriers" (yellow tape), and ran down the paved hill to meet him in his white convertible. We got to shake his hand.

Later that night, we took a bus downtown to hear him speak. It was at the long-gone Claypool Hotel. Being the dare-devils we were, we somehow found out what floor he was staying on, and actually made it to within 10 feet of his suite before we were stopped by the Secret Service. (Can you even imagine?)

And on the night that Martin Luther King died, Robert Kennedy was scheduled to speak here.

He spoke in one of the most crime-ridden areas of the city. When he made the announcement that Martin had been silenced, there was a major police presence, Violence was expected.

There was none:

Now, I'm much older. I have pretty much given up on the hope that a man or woman will come along that will be the equal to any of these three men.

*Edited to change the hotel name. It was the Claypool, not the Clayton. Can't believe I screwed up that one.

[JDPriestly]

40. Me too. And, right now, I really feel disappointed in Obama.

I am a strong Democrat, but please, a trade agreement that Obama is too ashamed of to even talk about, a proposal to cut Social Security with the chained CPI, also a shameful proposal and now the news about the excessive surveillance which is a terrible blow to our civil liberties and to the very core of our democracy. I am so disappointed.

Obama is no Kennedy. He is neither John nor Robert. He just doesn't measure up.

Martin Luther King was unique. If Protestants had saints, he would be named a saint for sure, because that is what he was -- a saint.

All three were martyred. And I cannot help but believe that those who killed these men may have been part of some same effort to stop progress, to end liberal leadership in our country.

[mimi85]

54. I don't think Obama

is trying to compare himself with a Kennedy. JFK was great (although my parents, especially my dad, didn't like the Kennedys at all - this was Orange County), but he certainly was no MLK himself. If Clinton was impeached over something as ridiculous as he was, JFK would've been thrown out of office by today's standards and with the current political environment. I remember some of my teachers crying that day (the day after my bday), which I'm reminded of every year. Some bday present that was!

RFK affected me more as I was married by then and my daughter was born on July 3rd, just a month after his assassination. Young idealist that I was, I was totally devastated. I still am. I actually thought Vietnam would be the last war we would ever be in. Yeah, right.

I'm not sure why Obama is even being brought up in this thread. He will certainly go down in history and not just for being the first black to be elected though that is a VERY big deal. The odds of a black man with a funny name becoming President is something I never thought I'd see in my lifetime. My oldest grandson is biracial and he watched the election returns in 2008 with me and my husband (same guy, imagine that). When I saw the tears welling up in Scott's eyes and knowing of some of the bullshit that he'd been through will be with me until the day I die.

[Half-Century Man]

51. Always favored the book over the movie.

I read the text of this speech years ago in school, so long ago, it might have only been a year or two old. I had never seen the video before.

Thank you for posting this, the spoken word is far more powerful. I would have hated to check out without hearing it.

[Contrary1]

55. I believe this world would have been a better place...

had Robert F. Kennedy been elected president. I mourn what might have been.

"Ladies and Gentlemen,

I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening, because I have some -- some very sad news for all of you -- Could you lower those signs, please? -- I have some very sad news for all of you, and, I think, sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world; and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black -- considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible -- you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization -- black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion, and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill with -- be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poem, my -- my favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote:

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King -- yeah, it's true -- but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love -- a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.

We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past, but we -- and we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

And let's dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.

Thank you very much."

[KT2000]

25. I remember it well

JFK: I was 13 and they let us out of school. It was a shock and I didn't know what it meant for our country as we were in the midst of the Cold War and we were already afraid of the Russians bombing us.

MLK: I was a junior in high school. We had been through so much to figure out racial equality in our school. There had been demonstrations, violence, Black Panthers standing guard, police locking us in the school. But it brought out the best in so many as we felt power to change things. When he was assassinated, it seemed like the progress was going to stop. The powers that be did not want anything to change. I never believed he was killed by a "lone gunman" but rather the "establishment, as we called in those days.

RFK: To me it was over. The great efforts for the end to the war in Viet Nam, the liberation of women, racial equality, "power to the people, a candidate who spoke to the nation's idealists. The beacons of light in our society were just going to be murdered if they got close to success. The winners were the military/industrial complex which rules us to this day. My view of America changed drastically.

[Lugnut]

26. I graduated from H. S. in 1963.

When JFK was campaigning in this area in 1960 I was one of the Kennedy Girls group from all the area high schools. His assassination was devastating to everybody I knew. My family was glued to the TV the whole weekend and into the next week. The mood in this area was somber and people were crying in public. It's was a very sad time.

The RFK and MLK assassinations were like more slaps in the face. Assassinations never happened in most of our lifetimes and they sent people reeling.

[elleng]

27. Devastated,

College for JFK.

The events changed our perspectives, and shaped my life, much as 9/11 has done for all of us.

[MADem]

28. Yes, I was in Europe when JFK was murdered.

The outpouring of grief was quite remarkable. The mourning went on for what seemed like weeks.

I was in America for MLK and RFK. That was a difficult year.

Thank heaven for James Brown.

[kentuck]

29. When JFK was running for President, I was in the eighth grade...

...and there a girl in my class whose last name was Wilson and she said she was a distant cousin to Richard Nixon. I was strongly for JFK. We debated quite a lot.

When he was shot, I was a junior in high school. Before either our dinner or evening recess, there was a rumor in the class that the President had been shot. There were gasps. Then the bell rang and we all went outside to stand by the fence where the bus stopped.

Then another girl, from up the head of Green Briar, said that the President had been shot. We were silent as we made our way back into the evening classroom. In a short time, the principal's voice came over the Intercom that was in the room. He said that the President had been shot and that he has been declared dead.

I was speechless and in shock and as I looked around the class, I could tell that most of the kids felt likewise. Then the bell rang and school was over. We wondered if they would catch the guy that shot him?

For a few days, we were glued to our black and white TV as the events unfolded. LBJ consoled Jacqueline and took the oath of office. I recall how business-like he was during such a tragic time. I was surprised that he did not have the empathy that I expected from him.

In August of 1968, I was in Vietnam. I recall that there was a lot of anger when MLK was assassinated. In some instances, it was racial in context. But it was understandable. Back home, they were burning down Detroit. People were sitting in their windows with rifles.

I was rather numb when Robert was shot. Many people said that Robert was the person that most inspired them. There was little doubt but that he would be the next President. Then he was killed.

Then there was Eugene McCarthy in 1968. And Hubert Humphrey. But I was ensconced in a foreign land and can tell you absolutely nothing about the election of 1968 because I was not here to experience it. But from what I have read, it was a very important and interesting election.

But other things were happening. The Beatles had the White Album. People were marching in the streets. There was revolution in the air. Then in August of 1969, the very next year, there was Woodstock. It was a shock to all the generations before us. They really frowned upon boys and men with long hair. "Hippie" was a dirty word.

Then Nixon said he had a "secret plan" to get us out of Vietnam. The Democratic Party chose George McGovern and he lost by one of the largest margins in history. We would take up collections for the McGovern campaign at rock festivals and sorts. We felt like he was the man for the times.

Then came Watergate, the end of the war, and Jimmy Carter. I could write a history book but I'm sure a lot of people would challenge my memory and interpretation?

[truedelphi]

62. Can't say I disagree with your assessments.

Of course, one advantage of being a female during that era is I didn't have to worry about physically ending up in Vietnam. But I felt that that war spiritually robbed me of much of my youth.

About twenty years ago, I bought a very old Rolling Stone, one written a week or so after Woodstock. And what amazed me is that so many of the writers for that particular issue of the Rolling Stone felt that the music that was going down that summer was not up to par!

[H2O Man]

80. Write that book!

[Chipper Chat]

30. Nov 22, 1963 - noon

I was in a music store in downtown Indianapolis buying 45s when a "hippie-type" guy walked in and yelled "somebody shot the President." No one paid him any attention until he turned up his transistor radio and we listened in. Of course I was in shock. I was attending a music teachers' convention at the Severin Hotel. I just checked out and left, drove home to southern Indiana. It was a sad 200-mile drive. The next day I just sat in front of the TV for hours. Very depressing.

[Frustratedlady]

31. All 3. All were tragic, but Kennedy hit me the hardest.

Nothing like that had happened in my lifetime and I just couldn't grasp it. The U.S. basically shut down.

[chessmister]

33. JFK, MLK, RFK

I have been a member of Democratic Underground for some time now, but have never posted a response before. Your question just strikes a very painful chord in my memory.

I was ten years old when JFK was killed. I remember the day and the events in exquisite and painful detail. The following days, with the killing of Oswald by Jack Ruby, and the painful slow progress of the funeral train and all, all broadcast on TV, are indelibly impressed upon my memory. It was a formative event in my life. As it happens, I am in Dallas today, on family business, and went by the site at Dealy Plaza. Still very painful for me.

There followed a number of dark years, Vietnam Nam etc, and 1968 , in particular was a horrific year, with the killing of MLK, RFK, etc. I remember much, but it is too painful to share this evening. Perhaps another time.

I'm still struggling to understand what it all meant. And what we can do now to honor their memory and carry on. It is not easy.

Ah well.

[Taverner]

90. Thank you for your post

[longship]

34. I was delivering the Detroit News when JFK was killed.

Actually, I was in Jr. High School. All the paper boys were called to the office where we were told to get over to the paper station right after school. (Which was our normal routine anyway. The News just didn't want the delivery guys ditching on that day.)

The Extra edition -- they had to reprint the whole paper -- was very late and we all sat around the paper station for quite a while for the trucks to deliver the paper. Normally, this was about 3:00 -3:30 if I remember correctly. I guess the trucks were about an hour late, but my memory's a bit fuzzy.

We were shocked by the headline:
Kill Kennedy

It didn't make any sense. We knew he was assassinated, but what fucking idiot editor wrote that stupid headline. Here's a pic of it (along with the next mornings Free Press):

We all hated that headline. I was embarrassed to deliver than damned paper to my customers half of whom were in tears. The neighborhood was heavily Catholic.

For MLK and RFK, I was working for The telephone company as a central station installer, installing and testing the big switching systems in the central offices. We worked all over the place, mostly in Michigan, but all over the state wherever new switching equipment was needed, from a whole new office to just a small upgrade.

I don't recall where I was at the time, but Detroit went half crazy with sorrow with both MLK and RFK. 1968 was a bitter sweet year. The previous summer (1967) LBJ had to send in the federal troops to stop the riots. 1968 the Tigers beat the Cards in the seventh game of the World Series and Detroit erupted in joyful celebration.

But nobody doubted that those losses were much greater than that win.

I don't think Detroit ever again saw such unity as they did that year of 1968. Through both tragedy and triumph.

[Honeycombe8]

35. I was in elementary school. His death & assassination was announced over loudspeakers

in the school rooms. Even though I was in the 6th grade, I was shocked and horrified. I knew who JFK was, had seen him on TV, seen campaign signs before his election.

MLK - I don't remember that much. I recall being confused. I could understand, I think, that someone would kill him.... a black man who was controversial, famous, speaking out for change. Still....a sad time because he was a nonviolent man.

Bobby Kennedy - Another horrific incident I saw on tv. My first thought was "again? The poor family." and "Oh, no." At some point I wondered if another Kennedy would ever run for office. Then I wondered, "But why?" I understood some being angry at MLK (unjustified, but I understood the anger that an outspoken black man could generate), I didn't understand the anger against the Kennedys.

[Blue_In_AK]

36. Absolutely I was alive and aware

and horrified. I was a senior in HS when John Kennedy was killed and a senior in college when MLK and RFK were assassinated. Innocence shattered.

[JDPriestly]

38. JFK's assassination changed my life.

It was such a shock. It was followed by the Gulf of Tonkin, civil rights legislation (a good thing) and the hippie movement which was in part a protest against having lost a leader we all really, really loved.

No president since FDR has been as loved so deeply by so many as JFK was. Obama is loved, but not as much as JFK was. It really was a bright, shiny moment, a fleeting moment of Camelot.

We still miss JFK, and his assassination is not adquately explained to me. I do not trust the official story. It is too convenient for the 1%. I will always believe that we were told lies about it, but I don't know what the truth is.

[Blue_In_AK]

41. I've never trusted the official story either, JD.

There have been nefarious forces at play in our power structure for decades, which is why I don't trust for one minute that all this surveillance, data mining, "kill lists," etc. won't ultimately be used for very bad purposes. I'm really afraid for the country my grandchildren will live in.

[JDPriestly]

48. Me too.

We are a long way from FDR.

[avaistheone1]

119. Count me in.

Like most Americans I never trusted the official story / Warren Commission.
My mistrust of government started with those assassinations.

[Bavorskoami]

42. If we weren't aware before we sure were after the assassinations.

I was a junior in high school in drafting class when the intercom was turned on with a radio at the microphone in the school office reporting on JFK's assassination. We were all shocked and rendered numb and speechless at first. I remember also days later being glued to the TV listening to the solemn drumbeat as I watched the entire procession of the horse drawn caisson with JFK's casket up the avenue to the Capital building to lie in state. As the shock wore off I have to say some of us were apprehensive of an LBJ presidency. (My friends mostly came from Republican families - but all of us had been inspired by JFK's charisma as President.)

In 1968 when MLK and RFK were shot I was in the Army in California - at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterey. Without ready access to radio or TV we first learned of both assassinations in kind of a confusing word-of-mouth network so our shock was at first tempered by a lot disbelief, confusion and skepticism that we were getting the real story. RFK had been campaigning in CA for the presidential primary and I had seen him speak at the Monterey airport only a couple of days before his assassination.

The MLK assassination is in my memory also tied to a report from one of our language instructors who had been summoned to Washington, DC, to interrogate a Czech general (Jan Šejna) who had a bit earlier defected to the West. The instructor spoke to us later about the riots in DC and of watching the plumes of smoke rising from the arson fires.

The losses of Bobby Kennedy and MLK are also linked in my mind as one of the reasons for the atmosphere of despair and anger in demonstrations in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic convention.

It's a bit off topic form this thread but I can't think of 1968 without also remembering the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact armies. Almost all of our Czech instructors at the DLI had fled their homeland after the communist takeover in 1948 so you can imagine how emotional that was for them and us as their students.

Let's hope and pray that there is never another year like 1968 or a family of national public servants like the Kennedys that suffers so much tragedy.

[grantcart]

43. Three days I will never forget

When JFK was shot I was in the third grade and watched it all on TV and was deeply saddened by it.

I was absolutely shocked to see Oswald get shot live on TV.

I remember I was 14 when I was sitting on the floor of our living room and the news that Martin (as we kids called him) was shot in Memphis. As the night unfolded and the violence erupted I looked at my parents and realized that while they were not happy with the news that we were experiencing it on two completely different levels.

When Bobby got shot later that year it was like sucking all of the life out of you. I knew that it would be a long time before I would ever have hope in a candidate again. I just didn't think it would take 40 years.

[GReedDiamond]

44. I was in Miss Murphy's 3rd Grade Class...

...in Tinley Park, IL, at the moment that the JFK hit had happened.

The assassination of President Kennedy was announced to the class.

The school had a TV set (a black and white portable) brought into the classroom and we watched Walter Cronkite's live coverage.

That was the Magic Moment that the USA went through the looking glass.

I am convinced it was the pivotal point in the march towards totalitarianism.

The hits on Bobby Kennedy and Dr. King were the followup to the JFK job.

It's been downhill ever since.

[Liberal In Texas]

46. Yes.

And marched.

And was devastated more than a few times.

Especially with Bobby. He was our hope to turn things around.

....

[jimruymen]

47. JFK, MLK and RFK

I saw President Kennedy one month before he was assassinated when he visited the Air Force base in Little Rock where I was stationed - one month later I witnessed my fellow airmen of Southern heritage celebrating the news; I was sitting in a social studies class at Brooklyn College when in formed about Martin Luther King's assassination and going to work the next day as a telephone installer in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn where the mood was noticeably somber; woke up in Brooklyn to hear the news of Robert F. Kennedy's death - so here I am sitting in Los Angeles, not far from where he was shot, having done a few news assignments at the hotel facing the music of yet another smiling Democratic administration going to great lengths to undermine all the progress of the last century in the name of progress and security.

[uppityperson]

109. Aww, can I keep him? What "great lengths" is "smiling" Dem admin going to great lengths to undermine

all the progress of the last century in the name of progress and security? Tell us more.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

49. Nightmare times mixed with The Beatles

Truly. The Beatles came along to rescue a lot of young people from the shock and sadness of the JFK assassination. He was a tv star president with can't miss press conferences. He had such appeal to teenagers. I was 16 on November 22, 1963. No way to shake the memory of that day. Practically every minute since first hearing he'd been shot, to hearing he'd died and then sobbing in the girls room and later on the football field. And then fainting at a church service to honor him.

The Beatles came along 3 months later. And then Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965. By the time Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, it seemed predestined. And the Vietnam War was on our tv's every night on the news. Is it any wonder drugs became so popular? Or The Who?

Robert Kennedy, Jr's assassination was just salt in a wound with a pretty thick callous on it. Many high school guys we knew weren't coming back from Vietnam. What a way to grow up post WW2.

The night John Lennon was shot, I was living right around the corner. I went to the entrance to Central Park across from the Dakota and spoke with a NY Times reporter about the day JFK was shot and how The Beatles brought us out of the depression we felt. And now Lennon was assassinated. I stopped believing in God that night.

[ReRe]

50. JFK, RFK & MLK

K&R

I was. High School. Announced over the intercom. Basketball game that night immediately canceled. Everyone wept, even the tough guys. Time stood still for weeks. Watched TV for days on end. But little did we know what would occur before the decade's end. And then... from then on, this country was changed, for the worse.

Thanks for the Tom Clay clip.. hadn't seen it in a while. I watched, and right on schedule, my hair stood straight up on my arms and something entered my eye.

[Taverner]

91. I was born in 1970 and the Tom Clay clip does that for me too

Our Generation (GenX) may not have been there, but those three murders affected generations to come.

I still feel a sense of loss for something I had never known...

[Half-Century Man]

53. One of my earliest memories I can attach a date to..

..is JFK's funeral procession in Washington DC. I remember the coffin riding on the caisson pulled by the team of horses. I remember the reversed boot in the stirrup (the left I think, will check later to test memory). The reason I remember is because my father explained the traditions of these things to me as we watched it on TV. I just did the math, I was 3 years, 1 month, and 3 days old. My fathers demeanor was so strong as to burn those memories into me.

[SoCalDem]

56. I was in college when Bobby & MLK were assassinated..in junior high when JFK was killed

It was a turbulent decade..start to finish

It started with us expecting to be nuked to smithereens

Then Kennedy was killed

Then we had all the rioting & the SDS bombings all over the place

Then we had 1968 when everything went berserk

and for most of the decade friends, brothers, husbands, Dads, cousins, uncles were being shipped off to Viet Nam

Kent State

The we had Watergate & Nixon being booted out.

Things did not even begin to settle down until about 1975

[deurbano]

57. I was nine at the time JFK's assassination ... and my parents hated him....

My class was on a field trip, and when the bus driver told us the president had been shot I didn't get what the big deal was. (Since I had heard he was evil, and my parents had even switched political parties over Kennedy's "intervention" in the South.) Over the next few days and years, I became a JFK fan, and even kind of dreamed of being a president like him, with a shock of sandy brown hair falling in my eyes.. before I suddenly realized one day (and there was an exact moment when that realization dawned) that the only Kennedy I could aspire to be was Jackie.

With Dr. King, I don't remember the moment... but more the fear in the aftermath. (Of course, my parents hated him even more than JFK, but I had my own opinions by then.)

I was watching the election results on the night when RFK was shot, and I was so (secretly) excited at his California win. Of course, my parents couldn't stand RFK, either, but I had heard him on the radio or TV... and Nixon couldn't come close to competing with that. Then the election coverage was interrupted by the unbelievable news... and he died on the day of my 8th grade promotion. It was all pretty devastating... and hard to separate the internal sort of disillusionment of growing older/becoming more aware with the very real events that seemed to reinforce that. For me (and the country), a lot was lost that year.

[life long demo]

58. I was 20 when JFK was shot

And I can tell you it was terrible. People were kind of like after 9/11. Somber, heavy heart, disbelief, anger. You were glued to the TV. Then on top of it the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, so no one ever paid for that crime. He was inspirational. He got the peace corp. going. And MLK, I don't think we ever got over JFK killing, so when MLK was shot it was a nightmare all over again. Then Bobby. I remember saying my God they shot Bobby. I guess for me that was the last straw. I guess I never again felt the hope that all three instilled in people. Even when Pres. Obama ran, or maybe it was the fear of hoping again.

[newfie11]

59. I was in high school and college during that time

The murders along with the Watts riots, Vietnam made it a very scary time and one I would never want to relive.

[sarge43]

61. I was 20 when JFK was shot

I remember all three murders all too well, especially Jack Kennedy's. When the news of Robert Kennedy's murder was announced, I shouted at the TV, "What the hell is wrong with us?" I'm still waiting for an answer.

[Shrike47]

63. I was a sophomore in high school when JFK was shot.

The funeral, on TV, made me cry. I was and am not an easy crier but it was so sad.

[WinkyDink]

64. Yes, all the oft-excoriated Baby Boomers were alive. Now our memories are important?

I'd write some, but I'm too busy ruining the economy for the Millennials.

[HereSince1628]

68. From the looks of this thread there a many

who remember Dan Rather and Bill Moyers as cub reporters.

[Taverner]

92. Last thing we need in inter-generational division

I am a GenXer and even I was affected by those three murders - despite being born in 1970

My kids, born in 03 and 06 will be affected by 9/11, and will probably ask the same questions

We are all Democrats, we are all Americans (well most of us) and we are all human

We all have the capability of sorrow

And by the way, it wasn't boomers that ruined the economy: this was planned as far back as the 1930s.

Check out "The Business Plot" where some very familiar family names show up in a plot to overthrow FDR.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

These guys never gave up.

[carolinayellowdog]

65. in both cases, double traumas

I had just turned 10 when JFK was assassinated, and my earliest election memories are of 1960 when most of my classmates were for Kennedy. The teachers held it together but were clearly very upset, and many of us kids immediately started crying. But watching Oswald get assassinated on live TV was the more shocking and indelible memory. Even at 10, I realized that now we'd never get to the bottom of the story with the assassin assassinated.

RFK and MLK happened so close together that the whole spring of 1968 blurs together as one long nightmare. At 14 my preoccupation was with the likelihood that the Vietnam War would drag on long enough to get me and my classmates killed. The violent silencing of two of the most emphatic voices against the war seemed like an omen that it would drag on for years. And indeed, my lottery number in 1972 was so low that I'd have been at risk of being drafted, but for the decision to suspend the lottery draft that year. (John Edwards, also born 1953, was in that same one-year demographic of young men right on the edge of the draft but rescued at the last minute.)

[hobbit709]

67. I remember those and more.

born in 1950.

[BlueToTheBone]

69. I think that Kent State was even more

horrifying for me. There were so many deaths during that time. It was out of control. Jack, Bobby, Martin, Jimi, Janice, Jim, the Soledad Brothers, murders of the Black Panthers in the street; the beating of people at the democratic convention. I lived in Berkeley at the time and it was routine to see people being brutalized all the time. They beat a priest at the end of our block one day.

But Kent State woke me completely. I was 21 and naive and even though my parents were horrible, I believed they were the aberration; but the order to shoot college students made me realize; my parents were the norm and they hated us all. The idea that we stepped beyond their control made that whole generation crazy with hate and fear. It was as though they rose from their alcoholic haze and were furious that we didn't want what they did.

Wearing jeans was a signal to each other that we existed, then Madison Ave co-opted that and I knew nothing was safe. I am stunned today that people put their whole lives on the internet. To me, that is just crazy.

We worked hard and tirelessly to stop the War. When Viet Nam ended, we thought we had done something; civil rights had begun, women were stepping out into the world as unique individuals, rather than someone's wife or daughter, we ended the draft (which we thought would help end wars - lol.) We pushed Johnson out and almost impeached Nixon; but we did get him out too.

Our long range view was to live our lives the best we could and raise our children to seek personal power rather than power over. Meanwhile, the MIC quietly slipped into the places of local power and here we are today. Of course, for them, it wasn't a beginning, but a continuation of their relentless push for total control of all the Earth and Her inhabitants.

I feel we failed because we were too short sighted. For the most part we were politically unaware because of our age and then all our role models were killed.

I fear that your generation and the younger generations will not step up; everyone is too numbed out and the MIC is even more powerful. They're like a antibiotic resistant germ and we didn't go far enough with the bleach.

[xiamiam]

73. I was 13 when jfk was killed . Your post is authentic and how it was for me

I was in school 90 miles from Kent State when those murders occurred. I had attended a moratorium against the war the night before at my school. One of my English profs was an anti war activist and also attended the rallies at Kent State so we had a more personal alliance and would share info with nearby schools. I remember where I was upon receiving the news of each of those deaths but Kent State was unbelievably frightening. I also remember running across campus crying to the little church each time I learned that one of my friends was killed in Vietnam. I remember the vets returning to school and telling us about their experiences...or as much as they were willing to share.
Those days, the 60's and early 70's formed my world view. I was in the middle of it so far as anti war activism was concerned and for some unknown reason, we let our guard down. I actually thought that our consciousness had moved forward and that the place we find ourselves now would never return. When we invaded Iraq the first time, and it was televised, I knew that while we were busy creating alternative ways of living, the mic had been plotting and planning. Watching that invasion on tv in the early 90's, created a stress behind my eyes that I always link to that realization.
We fought so hard. I remember the horror watching the civil rights marchers be hosed and beaten. You're right, our parents were confused about us but we had such ideals and they loved us and when they saw us killed at Kent State, things began to change.
Thinking about all of those deaths during that decade is painful...still. Lots of things changed. It is even more painful to think of what we have now become.

[BlueToTheBone]

75. During my first few demonstrations against the Iraq War

I walked down the streets weeping. People all around me were too. It really was an acknowledgement that we failed. We didn't create world peace; instead we jumped into the belly of the beast and we became what we fought against...complacent and disengaged, trying to "make a living."

Meanwhile our children really got confused about drugs because of the dangerous propaganda that cannabis is the drug from hell and the real drugs from hell insidiously moved into the neighborhoods. My beloved niece told me that she wished someone had really talked about drugs to her; because she/they feel if they are being lied to about cannabis, they are being lied to about them all.

I have no solutions, but I keep on trying to educate and fight in the ways I can.

[Taverner]

94. My dad was a cop working riot control

Often times they would call in cops from other cities to reduce any empathy local cops might have had

He had stories that would would make you pass out

My dad is an "interesting" man, but the more I learn the more I see him as a product of the Silent Generation

[BlueToTheBone]

95. No wonder you had a cloud over your youth

from this. It must have been a difficult time at your house and tumultuous for your dad.

I'm sure they brought in outside forces, because it would be difficult for a parent to kill their child or their neighbor's child, but outsiders can dehumanize them. To bring force like that they had to bring in the national guard...cops in the neighborhood would have had a too personal relationship to actually fire, I think.

[Taverner]

97. Let's just say if they had camera phones back then, entire police forces would have been on trial

Or not...since these days it's fully legal for a cop to arrest someone filming them breaking the law

[BlueToTheBone]

100. like I said, I lived in Berkely during that period

and saw them beat a priest on the sidewalk down from my house. It would have gone viral if we had had internet in those days for sure!

The difference was between now and then though is that what was happening did make to nightly news. Today, crickets.

[treestar]

70. Alive but not old enough to be aware

I was 9 in 1968 and had some very vague ideas. I remember Dad being for Humphrey. He hated Nixon. He campaigned for a candidate for a local office, driving the neighborhood with a bullhorn - we were in the car. Some kids, who I knew, surrounded the car yelling "Nixon! Nixon!" (The car was going very slow).

The assassinations would have been earlier that year, but I don't recall them as current events at all.

[Punkingal]

71. I was in the 8th grade when President Kennedy was killed..

It was devastating to everyone I knew. When our principal announced it on the intercom, he was crying.

Dr. King's death brought an additional grief for me, because I lived in Tennessee. Not only was it sad, but I was ashamed that it happened in my home state. Sadly, I can't say people grieved for him like they did for the President...too many people here are taught to be bigots and never learn to think for themselves as I did.

And Bobby...in some ways that was the worst one of all. It was just mind-numbing, unbelievable. It made me feel hopeless and frustrated. I had just graduated from high school. I vividly remember watching his funeral and feeling so sorry for Teddy, who couldn't keep the tears from his voice; watching that train all day and seeing all the sadness on the faces of thousands of people that I knew was reflected on my own.

Many years later I visited the Kennedy graves, and Bobby's is over to the side from the President's, alone, with just a small cross. What struck me about that visit is I had accepted the President's death, because I could view his grave with respect and regret, but seeing Bobby's, with that little cross made me feel as sad and hopeless as I did the day he died.

As for Dr. King, I have grown to appreciate him even more as the years go by. What a brilliant, loving man he was, and what a huge loss for humanity when he was gone. I feel fortunate to have been alive at the same time as him.

[LWolf]

72. Alive, yes. Aware?

Not of JFK. I was 3.

MLK and RFK, yes. There was a lot of grieving in my house, and by then I was old enough to be aware of it, to be aware of our loss. My friends? No clue. Me? Horror that the world was not safe, that good people who did the right thing could be publicly murdered.

[Cleita]

74. Yes and it put the whole nation in shock. No President had been assassinated in anyone's memory

who was alive until then. We also witnessed Lee Harvey Oswald being killed right in front of the TV cameras by Jack Ruby. At first it was too surreal to register that a man had actually died on live television with the nation watching. I actually witnessed Bobby Kennedy killed sort of too. The campaign party was being shown on local television. When he left the ballroom he was shot off camera but the chaos and commotion was televised live. It was awful. I'm glad that many of these events are not televised today. I don't need to see that history being made.

[CountAllVotes]

76. Was in the 3nd grade when JFK was assassinated

They announced it over the P.A. system and we were told to go home.

I did not know what the word "assassinated" meant but I went home as told which was a walk about 1/2 hr. long.

I arrived home to an empty house which was no surprise as my mother worked full-time (I was what they call a latchkey child; a term that did not exist in those days) .

Mother arrived home about 2 hrs. later and screamed at me, "What are you doing home?". I told her that Pres. Kennedy had been killed and that we were told to go home from school. She began crying at once and my mother NEVER cried. It was indeed a horrific shock and she had not heard about it yet.

Everything was shut down for the next several days and that funeral seemed to go on forever.

On the radio, they played the same song over and over again and that song was "Theme From a Summer's Place".

Every time I hear this song it reminds me of the day JFK was killed and the long funeral and a mother that never cried for any reason whatsoever. It was the saddest time I've ever seen America to be in my lifetime; sadder than 9/11, sadder than MLK, sadder than anything I can remember.

As for Robert F. Kennedy, I remember it too well. It was the assignment in school for the day of the primary election in Calif. and it was to be held in Los Angeles. It was in the wee hours of the the night that I was watching it on our old black and white TV and all of a sudden, it was boom boom boom and a total freak-out on the TV. RFK had been shot and killed right before my eyes and I was not but 12 years old.

My parents were in bed asleep and I went and knocked on their bedroom door. The woke up and were like ? I told them that RFK had been shot and killed and my mother and father got up at once and they both began to cry cry cry. God that was sad.

Some things you never forget and the Kennedy assassinations were one of them as my parents absolutely loved the Kennedys. I hope to never witness such horrific sadness again in my life.

As for MLK, that was incredibly sad as well but at that time, we had the same very racist America that we have today and I don't recall that MLK got near the amount of "press" as the Kennedy assassinations did.

RIP JFK, RFK & MLK!!

[Taverner]

96. Wow...that is surreal..."Theme from a Summer Place"

Almost Orwellian...

That paints a very bizarre picture in my mind....

[CountAllVotes]

103. It scarred me for life that song

I can't forget it, the non-stop playing of it over and over again on my mother's old radio with the dial on it in the kitchen.

We had just the one radio and that was it. It would briefly stop being played to "update" on the situation, but they kept playing it over and over again until the funeral was over.

I don't like the song because of the horrible memories that emerge when I hear it.

Why I remember the song and the name of it is beyond me. I was all of not even 8 years old at that time. I suppose that should tell you something about the effect this horrific event had on people and also young children as well.

It was a horrible time. Between the assassination and the fact that we were doing the "duck and cover" thing at school, I began to seriously wonder about what sort of a country I was living in I must admit. I knew it was not a good time, that was for certain. still to this day.

My father admired JFK greatly. He told me that JFK's biggest fear in life is that he would go blind and not be able to read anymore. He knew all sorts of "facts" about JFK because JFK was indeed his hero; a man that America needed and waited for for far too long.

To me, the assassination of JFK was the beginning of the end of the America that some of us remember. We'll never see that America the Beautiful again IMO.

It was a done deal already when JFK was shot in the head and killed. Why did this happen? We'll never know I am convinced.

[lunatica]

77. JFK's assassination was profoundly shocking and devastating

Everyone cried and our grief was profound. No one saw it coming, much less even thought something like that would happen in this country. When MKL Jr was killed it was being punched in the solar plexus. When RFK was killed it pretty much ended the progressive movement that was growing. Just brought it to a sudden halt. The air was let out of our sails.

Our next President was Nixon.

[RebelOne]

78. I was a young 23-year-old stay-at-home mom at the time JFK was killed.

And I also remember RFK and MLK's assassinations. In fact, I voted for JFK, and it was the first time I ever voted. I do not remember what others had said since it was so long ago.

[MichiganVote]

81. As a Catholic school child, the JFK assasination was largely

Last edited Sat Jun 22, 2013, 01:59 PM - Edit history (1)

perceived among the Catholic parents and church priests/nuns as an example of religious martyrdom. If you were a good little Catholic boy or girl, you fell in step with that illogical idea. When MLK was shot, among my northern white relations it was perceived as an unfortunate but probably necessary evil. The so called good whites felt that MLK was probably a good man and people needed to be treated decently but not equally. No never equally. And whereas they thronged to the message and the image of Jack Kennedy, in fairness, the media never gave MLK the air time needed to really acquaint whites with his message. I don't think that most even knew he was a Reverend.

By the time RFK was shot, they felt the same about Robert Kennedy as they did about MLK. They did not rally round his death as an example of Catholic martyrdom except as it applied to his wife, the mother of his 11 (?) children. In their minds he was the lesser of the two brother and in some invisible way, they blamed Robert for Jack's death. No one ever said it but they were thinking it.

Each death was significant in terms of its relation to time. The speed of change was faster then than the release of the newest Iphones today. It was all an incredible jumble of events and impressions for each age group.

I have spend my adult years piecing together the puzzle of those times and of course the significance of Watergate.

[CountAllVotes]

82. The media never gave MLK the air time needed

You are so right, not that many people knew much about MLK until some years later it seems to me when they made his birthday a "holiday", a holiday that moves according to whether there is a Monday or a Friday around it so it will be a 3-day weekend.

Does anyone actually know that MLK was in fact born on Jan. 15th?

[MichiganVote]

89. I truly think that Walter Cronkite tried to get people to notice MLK as a citizen

with a message but I have no doubt the media whiteheads would not permit him to have "equal" time. In fairness and in comparison to today's time, none of the TV media heads were on a par with FOX either. In today's world, George Wallace would be canonized by FOX as a visionary.

It pays to be vigilant where the media is concerned no only for what they do show but also for what they don't.

[bemildred]

83. That was when I realized that politics here is just like politics everywhere else.

Not worse mind you, but the same.

[truebluegreen]

85. I was eight when JFK was murdered.

I remember like it was yesterday. I was home sick from school, sitting on the couch wrapped in a blanket and watching TV when the news report came on. Started crying (I should note that my earliest political memory was staying up "late"--8 o'clock?--to watch election results in 1960 for fear That Rat Bastard* Nixon might win). I know my parents were in disbelief, shocked, subdued, depressed but I didn't really understand much then. JFK was more a symbol to me at that age...

I understood all too well in 1968. The protests against the war were heating up, progress was being made in civil rights, women's rights, all kinda rights...and then MLK Jr was murdered. RFK stepped forward as an amazing force that night...and then he was murdered. And as ill fortune would have it, there was That Rat Bastard again, running for president....At that time the family feeling was "despair".

It seemed as if the light of possibility and progress went out and we have been fighting, and losing, a defensive battle ever since.

We used to walk on the moon, and now we can't even stop our bridges from falling down.

*actual quote from my dad, who never swore.

[ballardgirl]

86. I was 13 for JFK

and can remember what I was wearing when I heard the news. I was a sensitive kid and felt very confused and sad. I was a senior in high school for MLK and RFK and was angry in a mellow hippy kind of way.

[Demoiselle]

87. I was in college (in Western Massachusetts) when Jack was killed.

We were all dazed and numb. We students sat in small clusters all over campus, trying to get our bearings. I remember sitting upstairs in a faculty member's office watching a particularly dynamic, happy dean staggering alone (really staggering) across the quad. We gathered around any tv available, all that weekend (there weren't that many tvs) spellbound.

I was married by 1968, and my husband and I struggled to grasp the loss of Martin Luther King. Again, dazed and numb. Then, not two months later, he woke me one morning to tell me they'd shot Bobby.

My half-awake reaction was: "You're kidding."

I really hate having been a witness to all this awful loss.

[Demoiselle]

88. One more memory...

I felt (like everybody else in my generation) that Jack Kennedy was encouraging all of us to join him in a wonderful adventure and renewal. And then right before we got there, we lost him, and I lost my faith in such renewal. Flattened is about the best word I can think of to describe it. My parents, North Dakota Democrats (no less!) who'd survived the Depression, were broken hearted too.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

93. I was home on leave when JFK was shot. In college protesting the war when MLK and RFK got shot.

JFK was shocking. RFK and MLK were almost predictable.

[roamer65]

99. We need resolution of JFK's assassination.

This country will never be able to move on until we resolve it.

[Taverner]

102. Agreed. And RFK and MLK.

I think we need resolution of Iran Contra and the many other misdeeds of our government since the 1960s

[roamer65]

110. Resolve JFK's murder...

...and all the others will come to resolution fairly quickly.

[Taverner]

113. I actually don't buy a "conspiracy" as much as a confluence of events

Yes, Oswald was there to kill Kennedy

They did find his bullets

There were also rounds from OTHER guns, some standard issue for Secret Service

A certain number of the established "law and order" did not like Kennedy

My dad, a cop in SF at the time worked with a mostly Irish department

He remembers it was split 50/50 among all of the Irish Cops - half were cheering, the other half sobbing

He told me that among the force, there was a rift between those who were "lace curtain" and true Irish

It had nothing to do with religion - the Scots-Irish there were just as divided

Now take a shot ringing out - you are on duty and you HATE Kennedy

You now have a cover - you can shoot the President while everyone is looking away - towards Oswald's direction - and in the confusion, no one knows it was you

Or they did - and they kept it hush-hush

The reason I don't go full blown government conspiracy FOR the killing is that the insconsistencies they cite are red herrings. Guys on the grassy knoll dressed well, it happens. Go to Golden Gate Park any day.

But the idea of a President, shot by one of his own security detail?

Would you want that kind of coverage?

At a time when we are almost at war with the USSR?

Remember this would have been LBJ's thinking

Consider that he didn't rat out Nixon for playing dirty tricks

He was a big believer in sweeping things under the rug

Warren gave the report, either by bribe or coercion. Now I truly believe he felt guilty and as 'penance' to himself as Chief Justice he presided over landmark civil rights cases that ensured many of the freedoms we have today.

So I think there was a conspiracy to cover up, just as there was for 9/11, Iran-Contra, and pretty much any other grievous violation.

Except they are getting bolder now - they aren't even trying to cover things up.

Bush pardoning everyone for Iran-Contra on Christmas Day was the last time the government made ANY effort to cover anything up AND sweep it under the rug.

[roamer65]

117. Remember what Jack Ruby said.

"When I mentioned about Adlai Stevenson, if he was Vice President there never would have been an assassination of our beloved President Kennedy".

[PDJane]

101. I was in High School when JFK was assassinated.

I am Canadian, and we were profoundly disturbed by JFK's assassination. When RFK and then King followed after, I remember my mother saying something about the gun culture in the US.

[northoftheborder]

104. Was an adult with family for all three.

Shocked by JFK's shooting, saddened by RFK's, enraged by MLK's.

[ellenfl]

106. of course! i remember the shock of hearing of jfk's assassination over the intercom

in my 8th grade(?) spanish class and watching the funeral parade on tv. i was a senior in high school when mlk and rfk were killed. the images are seared into my memories. incredibly sad days and a feeling of helplessness for many of us who were still young and idealistic. i'm not sure how i would have felt about jfk's presidency because his time in office was short, but the loss of mlk and rfk were significant to me. i don't recall any specific responses from parents and contemporaries, except that my mother had the news coverage on our one tv. based on what i see in my classmates nowadays, particularly in their feelings about our current president, i'm not sure how many would felt had the same sadness and loss of innocence. not too many perhaps.

[arely staircase]

107. I was born on June 5, 1968

so you can imagine what everyone was talking about - other than my nativity.

[OldEurope]

108. I was born 1958.

My mother had a grocery right over the road of a casern of American troups (in Munich). We got our first TV in 1965, so we missed the pictures from Dallas. But we watched radio. And mourned, because America was the great promise, the model for our new born democracy. My sister who is ten years older than I, had a poster of JFK pinned at her side of the room. He was a hero for the German youth, the poster was from a special journal for German teenagers.
And then we had to notice that the promise was not kept. When MLK died I was still a child. But this was the first time in my live when I cried for a person I had never met. We had a TV then, and I started to learn English at school. I learned about racism in America at the same time when I learned about the terrible racism in Germany in the past. You freed us from the nazis - but you could not protect MLK. To me it seemed that many Americans did not even want to protect him. Of course I now know that things are much more complicated.

[MadrasT]

111. I dimly remember MLK and RFK

Mostly I remember my parents being extremely upset, and my father being especially depressed for some time after RFK's assassination.

[jwirr]

112. You are asking how I and my parents felt at three different events. We sat together and watched the

entire JFK funeral week. We cried, we felt anger and we felt the first pangs of a coming end. With MLK it was like seeing continuing evidence that we were losing control of our nation. I was not with my parents when RFK was killed. But in many ways that event was the final nail in the coffin. I was devistated and lost much of my faith in the American Way. I almost quit voting but thanks to my parents I held my nose and marked the Democratic boxes for years to come - until George McGovern.

Much of my cynicism comes from witnessing these murders.I am not surprised that we have let the rethugs destroy our economy. We learned nothing.

[rurallib]

115. Freshman at a catholic high school

I was in religion class following lunch when the first announcement that he had been shot came over the PA.
I was in Algebra when the announcement that he was dead was made. Our teacher was non-catholic, but understood JFK was everyone's hero.
Next announcement was that the local paper needed kids to sell newspapers on the downtown street corners. Next announcement was to dismiss classes - @ 1:30 - that was it.
I wasn't scheduled to work that weekend and suddenly I now had loads of time on my hands. Saturday @ noon my best friend and I and a couple others went to play basketball. The indoor courts were closed, so we played outdoors. It was eerie, nothing was moving - no traffic most stores closed. The bouncing basketball was the only sound in a city of 50,000.
Spent most of the weekend glued to the TV - saw Oswald shot. The one thought I had was that Johnson would make it work. I had faith in him.

For MLK I was at my girlfriend's house. After a few racial slurs from her dad we moved to the student union. I sat there in amazement, just wondering if this would be the start of the next civil war.

For RFK I was stunned. I went to work and was given the chance to go home. I went home just wondering if this was the end of the country

[Taverner]

116. I have to add this: Teddy Kennedy's eulogy for Bobby

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ekennedytributetorfk.html

I dare you not to tear up

[CountAllVotes]

118. The way Ted's voice cracked during that tribute/eulogy

That too shall forever be etched into the minds of those that remember. How could anyone forget those words and the deep emotion that went with them?

I miss Senator Ted Kennedy a lot; he was my hero and I truly mean that.

America is simply not the same without him.

We'll never see the likes of men (or women for that matter) like this again is my belief.

If they are out there in our world, I hope they step up to the plate and become the leaders that our country desperately needs.

[Taverner]

120. Teddy was an amazing human

A reluctant hero, but a hero nonetheless

And the last of his kind

There are no more of his kind

Anywhere

[Taverner]

121. And yes, those cracks in his voice

They make me go soggy every time