JFK’s assassination, 50 years later on Friday, remains one of the definitive cultural moments in American history. The President was fatally shot during a parade on live television, while sitting next to his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, an American icon in her own right. Then, a few days later, Kennedy’s assassin was assassinated, again on live television. People have pored over the details of that fatal day for years, with conspiracy theories still hot even today. Was there more than one shooter? Was his death connected to his mob ties? While the world will likely never know all the details behind the President’s gory death, the impact and legacy that his political dynasty has left on the U.S. is immense in scope.
The unfinished business with which President Kennedy was involved may be his most important legacy of all, as the assassination paralyzed the country at a crucial moment in history. Kennedy's actions during the near-miss of a nuclear crisis in Cuba and his passionate support of the space race made him a respected President, and more importantly a force to be reckoned with in comparison with the Russians. His efforts to stop the Cold War in its tracks died with him, and the U.S. was launched into a decades long conflict with the Soviet Union.
Because of the extremely high profile issues with which he had been involved, JFK's assassination was a generation's 9/11 moment. It was the kind of cultural event that froze people in time, leaving them unable to forget where they were or what they were doing when it happened.
"I was in fourth grade," President Morton Schapiro said of the assassination. "The teachers huddled together in the front of the classroom and one of them started to cry. I was watching live on TV a few days later when Jack Ruby shot Oswald. Hard to forget."
Other professors concurred that the event was impactful, even for those who were very young at the time.
"I was sitting in my junior high eighth grade science class in Chico, Calif.," said Medill professor Lawrence Stuelpnagel. "The classroom speaker came on and informed us that the president had been shot an killed. The next announcement was that school was canceled for the rest of the day. We were all stunned. I was very sad as I rode my bike home. It was one of those events where you will always remember where you were and how you felt."
JFK's leadership as a civil rights supporter also served to make his death personal for many people. JFK's legacy in civil rights is one of his most respected achievements, as Georgia Representative John Lewis explained in an article for NPR. "He was the first president to say that the question of civil rights was a moral issue. He reminded us what it was like to be black or white in the American South." After his death occurred, the Civil Rights Act was pushed through Congress, finally garnering the bipartisan support that it needed.
The symbolism of such an unprecedented icon of morality being killed so brutally, suddenly and publicly, is probably why the reaction that some relate to their experience of President Kennedy's death is that of mind-numbing shock.
"I don't remember much beyond the sensation of being stunned, probably because being stunned is an affective state that is hard to recover later, much less 50 years later. Even as the mind absorbs tons of information, it also sort of goes blank," said History professor Michael Sherry. "A wider range of reactions, and my awareness of those reactions, took hours, days, weeks to settle in.”
The relevance of JFK's dynasty even today is entwined with the forward thinking, hard working and all-American spirit that he represents in our culture. Even in the midst of the legendary president's unfortunate death, there were important messages of the kind of American strength President Kennedy so strongly embodied.
“I had just gotten into my car to drive from my New Haven apartment to Yale Law School for my first-year torts class," said Medill professor Loren Ghiglione. "We students assumed [the professor] would cancel class, the way other law professors were canceling their classes. But he explained that he thought the best way to honor President Kennedy was by carrying on, by holding the class, not canceling it. I will always remember his message.”