The Kennedy assassination was more important than 9/11.
When I this topic and had to write why it was important, I asked about the assassination of JFK, and without hesitation they all agreed that the events surrounding Kennedy’s death were much more powerful than 9/11.
I’m 14, so obviously I wasn’t alive on that day 53 years ago when the world learned that the president was shot in Dallas. I wasn’t sitting by the television and radio listening as word came through that the president had died, although I have repeatedly watched Walter Cronkite deliver the news. Baby Boomers and the Greatest Generation carry that moment of history deep in their gut. And the shock of the assassination, the mystery and violence of Lee Harvey Oswald shot by Jack Ruby, and the grief-filled pageantry of the coffin drawn through the streets of Washington, D.C. continue to haunt our country on this day.
As someone who has lived my entire life as an American with only a vague ghost of JFK present, the death of Kennedy appears to represent more than a personal loss for the individuals of the preceding generations. Rather, the death of John F. Kennedy represented a death for the country itself.
I asked my grandmother about the assassination and she reminded me that the President had died early in his presidency, and, “If he had been allowed to live, he might have …show more content…
And yet she still grieved for the death that happened 53 years ago, and for the country shaken. I encourage you to read the description of public mourning in Robert Caro’s book The Passage of Power. I was struck by the nature of the national mourning, especially the hundreds of thousands who came to view the body in the Capitol Rotunda, and the poignant quality of that line of people wanting to pay their respects, never going down, but only growing until, finally, they had to send people
When I this topic and had to write why it was important, I asked about the assassination of JFK, and without hesitation they all agreed that the events surrounding Kennedy’s death were much more powerful than 9/11.
I’m 14, so obviously I wasn’t alive on that day 53 years ago when the world learned that the president was shot in Dallas. I wasn’t sitting by the television and radio listening as word came through that the president had died, although I have repeatedly watched Walter Cronkite deliver the news. Baby Boomers and the Greatest Generation carry that moment of history deep in their gut. And the shock of the assassination, the mystery and violence of Lee Harvey Oswald shot by Jack Ruby, and the grief-filled pageantry of the coffin drawn through the streets of Washington, D.C. continue to haunt our country on this day.
As someone who has lived my entire life as an American with only a vague ghost of JFK present, the death of Kennedy appears to represent more than a personal loss for the individuals of the preceding generations. Rather, the death of John F. Kennedy represented a death for the country itself.
I asked my grandmother about the assassination and she reminded me that the President had died early in his presidency, and, “If he had been allowed to live, he might have …show more content…
And yet she still grieved for the death that happened 53 years ago, and for the country shaken. I encourage you to read the description of public mourning in Robert Caro’s book The Passage of Power. I was struck by the nature of the national mourning, especially the hundreds of thousands who came to view the body in the Capitol Rotunda, and the poignant quality of that line of people wanting to pay their respects, never going down, but only growing until, finally, they had to send people