The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: A Rude Awakening Into the Stormy Sixties

APUSH into the Past

On November 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy was riding in a parade through Dallas, Texas. He rode in a presidential motorcade in a topless vehicle with his wife, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy as well as John Connally, the governor of Texas and his wife. During the parade, John F. Kennedy was fatally struck by a bullet. Later that day, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for allegedly killing John F. Kennedy. Before Harvey could be convicted of the crime officially, nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald with a handgun while Oswald was in police custody. To this day it is unknown what Oswald's motivations were for assassinating the president. Joyce Meyer was a young adult when John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1962. She grew up in the United States in the midst of the Cold War, when tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were at an all time high. She remembers that fateful day more more than fifty years ago when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. She is prepared to share her personal experience and account of the John F. Kennedy assassination.