Re: JFK

[Salem HS <gdd024@sol1.solinet.net>]

Dear Eighth graders,

I am the Library Media Specialist in a middle school serving seventh and
eighth graders.  I'm interested in your project on the Kennedy
assassination.  My experience on the day JFK died was not unique, but you
might be interested since I was in Texas at the time.

I was a freshman at what is now the University of North Texas in Denton,
Texas, 40 miles north of Dallas.  I was in my dorm room expecting friends
any minute to walk to a l:00 p.m. music class, when I heard a commotion
in the hall.  People were shouting, "Kennedy's been shot!"  And one of my
dear friends said, "I know it's those d____ Republicans across town!"   Our folk
 s were all
Democrats, and there had been a great deal of controversy over Kennedy's
visit.  The local Republicans, and there were lots in Dallas, didn't like
him.

We went to class, but listened to the radio, and when Kennedy was
pronounced dead, we left, disbelieving.  I remember group grieving in a
dorm room that afternoon.  America was not as violent a country in 1963,
and presidents didn't get killed.  It really was like a nightmare...so
unreal.  But it was real.  That afternoon, my mom was to pick me up
for the weekend (college freshmen had no cars in those days, either), and
we heard rumors of road blocks on the roads leading out of Dallas.  The
rumors proved not to be true, and my mother arrived safely, also shaken.  We
went home to follow the rest of the historic events all weekend.

When Lee Harvey Oswald was captured, it was in the Texas theatre on Jefferson
Ave. in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas, where I grew up.  The Texas
was where I went to the kids' show on Saturdays and had my first dates.
My sister-in-law was still in high school and had skipped school to see
Kennedy in the downtown parade.  Afterward, she and a friend boarded a
bus to go home, passing directly in front of the Texas theatre just as
the police brought Oswald out!  At the time, they weren't sure what was
happening.  Television news explained it when they got home.

Last summer while visiting Dallas, I had an opportunity to visit The
Sixth Floor, Dallas' museum in the Texas School Book Depository from
where Oswald fired the shots that killed the president.  I was pleased
that it is very well done.  Dallas residents have always suffered a good
bit of guilt over their feelings and part in the assasination, and the
museum seems to say, "we didn't want this role in history; we, too, are
grieved; we have done our best to be honorable with a devastating tragedy."

Thanks for the opportunity to relive this niche in my personal history.
Good luck with your project.

Cheri Harrison

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Salem Junior High School           e-mail: salem_jhs@solinet.net
Cheri Harrison/Jane Foster         by phone: 1-404-593-2007
Library Media Specialists                    1-404-593-0113
5333 Salem Rd.
Lithonia, GA  30038

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