A few weeks ago, on November 22, we marked the 48th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as he rode in a motorcade in an open car through Dealy Plaza in the city of Dallas, Texas, in 1963.
Everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news that one of our most beloved presidents had been cut down by a bullet. I was at school in a ninth grade classroom surrounded by my classmates in my hometown of Reidsville, North Carolina. The principal's voice interrupted our activities as it came over the school's public address system. In faltering words, he informed us that our president had been shot and killed. He told us the president was dead.
My classroom erupted in applause.
I will never forget it. Most of the students in the room applauded. There was a joyful atmosphere, a celebratory mood. The few of us who were not clapping were in shock, crying. I cried for President Kennedy and the loss of his life, for his wife and children who would have to go on without him. I cried both for my country and the blow she had just taken, and I cried for myself for having to be in that room at that time and that place.
You have to be taught to hate like that. It doesn't come naturally. These young kids had learned this at home and had brought it to school with them. There I had to be exposed to it in all its sickening reality. It left a scar that remains to this day. There's another post I could write on the assassination, on the events of the days that followed, but when I look back, the first thing I remember is that they applauded.
They applauded.
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