I was at home that day, newly married (my first marriage) and working the night shift at the old U.S. Post Office (the USPS was not even a gleam in the eye of some scurrilous congressman). I was listening to WINS Newsradio (a pioneer of all-news, 24-7 programming) when the bulletin came on: The President had been shot in Dallas!
I was at home that day, newly married (my first marriage) and working the night shift at the old U.S. Post Office (the USPS was not even a gleam in the eye of some scurrilous congressman). I was listening to WINS Newsradio (a pioneer of all-news, 24-7 programming) when the bulletin came on: The President had been shot in Dallas!
I was stunned. How could this have happened? But then I thought: “He is in Texas, isn’t he.”
I knew that JFK was hated in many quarters of the country, not the least of them, the South. And he was in “enemy” territory, wasn’t he.
Nevertheless it was perhaps the most shocking news I had ever heard—experienced—in my young adult life. I was barely out of “toddler-hood” when the attack on Pearl Harbor had occurred and so that had had little impact on me, except that the grown-ups around me, and everywhere it seemed, were extremely agitated.
This, though, was calamitous news. The Camelot era had barely begun. Our glamorous and sophisticated President and First Lady were just beginning to make their imprint on the nation. As an African American I was particularly aggrieved because I had thought that a new era of progress in race relations just might be dawning.
And so I joined with so many of my fellow Americans who felt that something very precious had been stolen from them. I now believed that my newly-acquired bright, shining world had been plunged into darkness. It was excruciatingly painful and depressing.
I was at home that day, newly married (my first marriage) and working the night shift at the old U.S. Post Office (the USPS was not even a gleam in the eye of some scurrilous congressman). I was listening to WINS Newsradio (a pioneer of all-news, 24-7 programming) when the bulletin came on: The President had been shot in Dallas!
I was stunned. How could this have happened? But then I thought: “He is in Texas, isn’t he.”
I knew that JFK was hated in many quarters of the country, not the least of them, the South. And he was in “enemy” territory, wasn’t he.
Nevertheless it was perhaps the most shocking news I had ever heard—experienced—in my young adult life. I was barely out of “toddler-hood” when the attack on Pearl Harbor had occurred and so that had had little impact on me, except that the grown-ups around me, and everywhere it seemed, were extremely agitated.
This, though, was calamitous news. The Camelot era had barely begun. Our glamorous and sophisticated President and First Lady were just beginning to make their imprint on the nation. As an African American I was particularly aggrieved because I had thought that a new era of progress in race relations just might be dawning.
And so I joined with so many of my fellow Americans who felt that something very precious had been stolen from them. I now believed that my newly-acquired bright, shining world had been plunged into darkness. It was excruciatingly painful and depressing.