Mourners have descended on Dealey Plaza in Dallas to commemorate the site where John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963.
Kennedy, the youngest elected leader in American history, had been in office for almost three years.
He had won admiration for his handling of the Cuban missile crisis and brought glamor to the White House, but to many he was a divisive and hated figure.
His murder in Dallas spawned hundreds of conspiracy theories that are still debated today.
Hundreds of people were at the site on Wednesday, with some reminiscing about their own memories of that fateful day.
Mourners from near and far came to Dealey Plaza in Dallas on Wednesday to commemorate the site where US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963.
Many of those who came to mourn had been at the parade that day when Kennedy was shot
Leslie French, 64, shared Fox4 that he and a friend were just 50 yards away from the shot.
“Some ran, some fell, some stood there. “We didn’t know what to do,” he said.
‘We didn’t know what to do like two 14-year-olds, we ran towards the noise.’
Mickey Castro, 62, had received a permission slip from his school to skip that day and attend the event.
‘We saw him. It was so friendly, I was cheering,” Castro said, noting that he and his classmates had left the square and learned of the shooting at a nearby Dairy Queen.
“Till the day I die, I will never feel the highs and the lows in a few minutes,” he added.
President Joe Biden, who turned 21 two days before JFK was assassinated, reflected on his own experiences in a lengthy White House statement issued Wednesday.
The president is on Nantucket, just east of Martha’s Vineyard, where Kennedy sailed with his political family and plotted his bid for the Senate and the White House.
Kennedy, the youngest elected leader in American history, had been in office for almost three years
A person uses a cell phone to capture images of an X on Elm Street at Dealey Plaza
People stand in front of the windows one floor above the 6th floor of the book store
A photo taken by Dallas Morning News photographer Tom Dillard on November 22, 1963, of spectators lying on the ground in Dealey Plaza as a motorcycle officer drives by immediately after the shooting
President Joe Biden was a student when JFK was assassinated. “In life and in death, President Kennedy changed the way we saw ourselves,” he said
Clint Hill, who served in Jacqueline Kennedy’s Secret Service, said agents who responded to the killing were never given any guidance. He served under three more presidents
“I was in college and had just left class along with other students who, along with the entire country, were silently glued to the news,” Biden said, recalling where he was when he heard Kennedy had been shot
Biden called Kennedy’s assassination “a defining moment of deep trauma and loss that shook the soul of our nation.”
“Millions of Americans remember exactly where we were when it happened. I was in college and had just left class, along with other students who were sitting in silence watching the news along with the entire country.”
The nation’s second Catholic president, after JFK, linked Kennedy’s presidency to the push for civil rights and the Space Race, although he identified the president’s assassinated younger brother, Robert F. Kennedy, as his political hero.
‘The weeks and months that followed woke up a generation. President Kennedy had been a war hero, senator and statesman. “He set our nation’s compass firmly on many of the most consequential issues of the 20th century, from civil rights to voting rights to equal pay for women,” Biden said. “He led the most dangerous moments of the Cold War with calm determination. And at the dawn of a new decade, he called us to a new frontier, propelling us to the moon and beyond. He inspired a nation to see public service as a calling.”
“Like millions, I felt deeply his conviction and dreams for America. His ideas rhymed with the lessons I had learned from the nuns at school and around my father’s kitchen table – that we are all called to do good works on this earth, to try to make our world a better place in the service of others. But what I remember most was President Kennedy’s courage, his heroic devotion to duty, and his family’s ability to cope with deep suffering.
“We have seen this most clearly in First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, whose grace and resilience continue to hold the hearts of the American people as they did during that most challenging time in the lives of her family and our nation. His brother, Robert, was one of my greatest political heroes; and Teddy was one of my best friends. His daughter, Caroline, also remains a dear friend, along with countless Kennedy family members who Jill and I had the privilege of knowing, and to whom we send our love and affection on this memorial day.”
“In life and in death, President Kennedy changed the way we saw ourselves: a country full of youthful hope and ambition, buoyed by the seasoned strength of a people who overcame profound loss by turning pain into unyielding purpose. He called on us to take history into our own hands and never stop pursuing an America that lives up to its highest ideals,” Biden said.
He connected Kennedy’s truncated term to his own frequent metaphors of light and dark – introducing “grievances” that permeate the politics of the current era.
“On this day we remember that he saw a nation of light, and not of darkness; out of honor, not out of spite; a place where we do not want to delay the work that he started and that we all must now continue. “We remember the unfulfilled promise of his presidency – not just as a tragedy, but as a lasting call to action for everyone to do all we can for our country,” Biden said. “May God continue to bless President John F. Kennedy.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was nine years old when his uncle died, issued his own statement on the anniversary saying a peaceful mission after his death had been “abandoned” and calling on Biden to release all JFK assassination records to give.
He is challenging Biden as an independent.
‘The assassination of John F. Kennedy left an indelible scar on the American psyche. Anyone who was alive at the time can remember where he was that day,” he said in a statement.
“Of all the legacies my uncle has left to our country, there is one that has not yet been fulfilled. During his time in office, he held to a vision of America as a nation of peace, a vision that was abandoned after his death. “We spent the next six decades maintaining a military empire, wasting trillions of dollars as our economy dried up and our health and infrastructure deteriorated,” he said.
He highlighted a security order that JFK had signed shortly before his death, although Kennedy had previously sent thousands of military advisers to South Vietnam during his time in office.
“My promise to the American people is that I will put us back on the path to peace that JFK led us on when, shortly before his death, he issued a national security order to withdraw American advisers from Vietnam. Instead, we will embark on a path back to peace and prosperity for our country,” his cousin said.
He said both Donald Trump and Biden had “refused” to authorize the release of additional assassination documents.
“What’s so embarrassing that they don’t want to show to the American public 60 years later?” he took shelter.