The facts are this: John F. Kennedy was the first Catholic elected to the office of President of the United States in November of 1960 and he was assassinated on November 22, 1963, almost 60 years ago.
I know all this to be true. Thanks to archival foresight and modern media sharing technology, I’ve watched many hours of 1960 election night TV coverage along with hours and hours of 1963 assassination TV and radio coverage.
I can see, hear, and read things as they were 60-some years ago. I can see, hear, and read the same things others saw, heard, and read on that November 22 when his life ended.
There is one thing we have to make a note of though: I wasn’t there.
All I can do is make use of the echoes that came before me. As much as I try to put myself in the place of those who lived through those “four dark days,” I can only say that I know what happened based on what I’ve been told and what I can dig into and see for myself.
To me, JFK is always the leader slain at 46. To me, “Camelot” is how I think of the years between 1961 and 1963. To me, November 22, 1963, and the days that followed are just something to study and ponder.
A wave of images
There is a myth that surrounds those days, at least to someone like me who was born 20 years later.
Many of them are tied to the visual, giving the mind something to latch onto: The blue color of the limousine, the raspberry color of Jackie’s suit, the Zapruder film, people crying outside the hospital in Dallas, the still photo of LBJ being sworn in on Air Force One, the still photo two days later of the accused assassin being shot, John-John saluting at his father’s funeral, Mrs. Kennedy lighting the “eternal flame”.
The events of those days are told through stories, memories, feelings, and images.
When people talk about the day, they don’t often share textbook paragraphs of facts, but they share their feelings, which makes their memories so much more powerful.
That’s why they remember where they were and what they were doing when . . .
Can we rely on a feeling or a mood to know what happened and what is real?
What happened in Dallas is more than just fact. It’s emotion. Many may not remember the time of the shooting (12:30 p.m.) or the street it happened on (Elm St.), but they remember a nation going into mourning.
Do the facts matter? Perhaps not. “Who killed Kennedy?” is still a very popular question. Those who were around at the time may never fully move on from it, but they’ll know those days hurt.
Finding what is real
We’re even more separated from the time of Our Lord and Savior.
There’s no film from A.D. 33 or so, but we know He died on the cross.
When we pray the Creed, we don’t focus on the time and place, and we also don’t focus on the sadness that followed his death.
We focus on the hope of the Resurrection — a greater truth than what happened and how people felt about it.
In Christ, we have found a truth that goes beyond historical fact and beyond myth.
Perhaps, as a people, we’ll find a meaning in JFK’s death that’s beyond places and dates and beyond “one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot.”
We’ll find out what we were as a people to allow such a thing to happen. We’ll know that we can be a better people after it, move beyond the sadness, and, as Walter Cronkite said on a November 25 CBS News broadcast, “Maybe it may yet be possible to say that John Fitzgerald Kennedy did not die in vain”.
Thank you for reading.
I’m praying for you.