Extremists in Dallas created volatile atmosphere before JFK’s 1963 visit

[freshwest]

35. Living in Texas at that time, the Birchers didn't hide anything. They hated all of the Kennedys

wanted them dead. The ones I spoke with were teenagers, and they didn't have the maturity to keep their ideas hidden. When Kennedy was killed, they were clearly pleased but due to the anger of others they kept their mouths shut. It's certain their hearts weren't changed.

I remember the reports as some students who went off campus for lunch, knew he'd been shot and the school filled with rumors for hours. Just before school was over, the principal announced to us through the classroom speakers, which were almost never used, that Kennedy was indeed dead.

We felt we owned it, since we had all these extremists spewing hate locally. The JBS was really no different from the KKK and the Nazis, who also spoke openly. I don't think that those who weren't living at that time can grasp the atmosphere as changes were being made.

For myself, the killing of Medgar Evers, then the girls in the church, then JFK, then MLK, then RFK was a deep wound. So many leaders taken out, those who didn't live then doesn't know how soul crushing it was, since they weren't seeing the good that these men were doing for all of us and the joy that they inspired.

It was effective to polarize, as intended. Not that the Nazis and KKK weren't always calling for a 'race war' to overturn the federal government and let them install their government. The rhetoric hasn't changed.

Kennedy, like Johnson, was what they called a 'traitor to his race.' And Kennedy was a traitor to his social class. In a piece by RFK,Jr, about the anniversaries of JFK's death, he wroten definitely blamed rightwingers for it, but some who did not live in those days when our liberal leaders were being killed, refuse to believe they did it.

Instead, they go for the sensational versions that they know they can never prove, to not feel the fear political reality of the day would lead to judge it. It's more comfortable to think that way.

Some times some things are exactly what they look like.