Readers of ajc.com posted these remembrances of the day John F. Kennedy was shot.
“I was in the Air Force, stationed at McGuire Air Force Base and walking past the mess hall with a friend. Another friend passed by and asked if we had heard that the president had been shot. We both laughed and said “right!” because that was impossible to us. That just couldn’t be a real thing. Only after we started hearing it over and over again did it start to sink in.”
— Judetheobtuse
“I was in Mr. Thomas Moore’s class, right after lunch, at old Southwest Atlanta High. I remember he came in crying with a TV and told us as he set up the TV. Some students cheered, for President Kennedy wasn’t well liked in the South. Mr. Moore blew up.”
— Normd
“ … our teacher told us that the president was dead. What I remember most was on the bus ride home a high schooler told us that Russia would attack the U.S. because we had no president. I was so scared by the time I got home.”
— MattieMae
“Channel 11 (was) on that afternoon, and the show was “Dialing for Dollars” with Eleanor Knight, the station’s weather girl, and a male announcer. … all of a sudden there was a commotion behind the camera. The camera panned away from the set and focused on the production booth. Someone was running from the newsroom, tripping over seats, and trying to open the glass door to the studio. He was shouting ‘BULLETIN!!!! … BULLETIN!!! … EMERGENCY!!! … EMERGENCY!!!! … STOP THE SHOW!!! … I HAVE A BULLETIN!!!’”
— Jmbaran
“For those of us who were accustomed to seeing news and other programs on grainy black and white film, the relatively new technology of videotape, indistinguishable from a live feed, was still unfamiliar. As we turned on the TV (after hearing that Kennedy had been shot), there was the president, holding a news conference, smiling, handsome as ever, as alive as any one of us, and I muttered a small prayer of thanks for his safety. Of course this elation turned quickly to abject sorrow, when (Walter) Cronkite came back live with reports of JFK’s death, and I and others realized we had been watching video that was previously taped.”
— AuntieChrist
“I walked home (from the school bus stop), and when I entered the living room I found my mother and our black babysitter, Mariah, in a huddle of sobbing and wailing on the couch. My mother, June, looked up at me with her tortured, red, tear-soaked face and just shook her head and put it back down. I walked through the hall to my bedroom and I still wasn’t sure what had happened, but I knew someone good had been killed and I remember thinking to myself that we weren’t going to be happy anymore for a very long time.”
— ChipShirley
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