I was in Latin class at Welsh Valley Junior High School when John Dodds, the principal, announced the President had been shot. He ended, “I want you all to act like Americans.”
In a light drizzle, waiting for California state orders to lower the flag on the UCLA campus, with other grieving students. I'd been in a library reading room, and a radio next door had been too loud. One by one kids had filtered out to tell them to turn the radio down ...
I am 73 and live in the UK. This account brought back vividly the times from the assasination of JFK and through the '60s - and how it felt to live through them.
I can remember exactly where I was and the shock of the radio news announcing JFK's assasination - and, later, those of Lee Harvey Oswald, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. I only got to learn via the TV news and the newspapers about the deaths of Medgar Evans and the other civil rights activists you name.
Thank you Michael.
Best wishes
Jon
At the time, this seemed to be a totally US issue. However, anti-black racism was clearly around and strong in the UK in the 1960s as the recent BBC 'Small Axe' Mangrove dramas have been reminding us.
In 1953 the two of them (my grandmother, a medic, a pathologist to be precise, and my mum) occupied one room in what was called a "communal flat". A large apartment in central Moscow was split in two horizontally, along what was originally a double-height ceiling, so someone had the top part of the window and there was another flat running along the bottom part. What was originally a twelve-room beautiful apartment was now housing twenty four families, most of them Jewish.
A large black communal radio disk was on the wall, and one day all adults stood around listening to the news of Stalin's death. Several women had husbands in GULAG, including my mum's uncle and not a word was spoken, particularly in front of the kids.
My 16 year-old mum and her friend went to Stalin's funeral a few days later out of curiosity and were nearly crashed by the crowds. Someone kindly shoved them under a parked lorry, where they set for hours before being able to run home.
An awakening. I was in a 3rd year college class when JFK was shot, my oldest son born the day RFK was shot, watching TV in Kazakhstan as planes flew into twin towers 9/11. Thank you.
Another fine piece Michael. All of the events that you relate, when added to my own individual experiences over the same period, left me with a real sense of a complete lack of control over life.
I am enjoying very much these chapters, thanks for writing them. I was a freshman in high school when the classroom loudspeaker came on without any explanation saying that school was now closed, and we should all go home. That was the reaction to JFK being killed at my Catholic school. The country was shut down for the next 3 days and Sunday morning we woke up to the news and video that Oswald has been shot and killed. Then the funeral that made everyone cry and the march down the DC street led by the Kennedy brothers, Jackie and a very tall man in a military uniform that was not American. I asked my father who that man was, and he said Charles de Gaulle.
The next years were marked by the other murders you write about and the war in Vietnam where 6 of my high school classmates were killed while I was at university including my best friend and worst enemy from high school. I kept thinking that this war could not go on forever then in January 1971 the army came for me 6 months after graduation.
In a light drizzle, waiting for California state orders to lower the flag on the UCLA campus, with other grieving students. I'd been in a library reading room, and a radio next door had been too loud. One by one kids had filtered out to tell them to turn the radio down ...
I am 73 and live in the UK. This account brought back vividly the times from the assasination of JFK and through the '60s - and how it felt to live through them.
I can remember exactly where I was and the shock of the radio news announcing JFK's assasination - and, later, those of Lee Harvey Oswald, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. I only got to learn via the TV news and the newspapers about the deaths of Medgar Evans and the other civil rights activists you name.
Thank you Michael.
Best wishes
Jon
At the time, this seemed to be a totally US issue. However, anti-black racism was clearly around and strong in the UK in the 1960s as the recent BBC 'Small Axe' Mangrove dramas have been reminding us.
Profound! Shared with my mother, will ask her about 1953, when Stalin died. Vividly remember being in a sandwich shop on 9/11.
I would be interested to hear her reminiscences
In 1953 the two of them (my grandmother, a medic, a pathologist to be precise, and my mum) occupied one room in what was called a "communal flat". A large apartment in central Moscow was split in two horizontally, along what was originally a double-height ceiling, so someone had the top part of the window and there was another flat running along the bottom part. What was originally a twelve-room beautiful apartment was now housing twenty four families, most of them Jewish.
A large black communal radio disk was on the wall, and one day all adults stood around listening to the news of Stalin's death. Several women had husbands in GULAG, including my mum's uncle and not a word was spoken, particularly in front of the kids.
My 16 year-old mum and her friend went to Stalin's funeral a few days later out of curiosity and were nearly crashed by the crowds. Someone kindly shoved them under a parked lorry, where they set for hours before being able to run home.
Extraordinary. Thanks.
An awakening. I was in a 3rd year college class when JFK was shot, my oldest son born the day RFK was shot, watching TV in Kazakhstan as planes flew into twin towers 9/11. Thank you.
Another fine piece Michael. All of the events that you relate, when added to my own individual experiences over the same period, left me with a real sense of a complete lack of control over life.
You got me again, right between the eyes.
Fantastic! Thank you, Michael
Thank you Michael. Provoking such reflection in a world racing by so quickly. Write on. I am grateful for your work.
As a young teacher in an inner city high school in 1968, my Black kids asked me to join them at the AME church to mourn their beloved leader, MLK, Jr.
I am enjoying very much these chapters, thanks for writing them. I was a freshman in high school when the classroom loudspeaker came on without any explanation saying that school was now closed, and we should all go home. That was the reaction to JFK being killed at my Catholic school. The country was shut down for the next 3 days and Sunday morning we woke up to the news and video that Oswald has been shot and killed. Then the funeral that made everyone cry and the march down the DC street led by the Kennedy brothers, Jackie and a very tall man in a military uniform that was not American. I asked my father who that man was, and he said Charles de Gaulle.
The next years were marked by the other murders you write about and the war in Vietnam where 6 of my high school classmates were killed while I was at university including my best friend and worst enemy from high school. I kept thinking that this war could not go on forever then in January 1971 the army came for me 6 months after graduation.