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I was in 10th grade in High School. Room 201, Choral class. The announcement came over the PA system, and the pricipal put a radio near the microphone and we listened to the announcer telling us that our President had been shot in Dallas. They turned the PA off at that point. We really didn't have it in us to do any singing so we just sat in stunned silence. Then the PA came back on and we were informed that the President had died.
We were immediately dismissed for the day. You could have heard a pin drop in the normally noisy hallways.

I recall walking home with two of my best friends, who just happened to be African-American. We all cried, but they were not only crying over the loss of the President, but also for the uncertainty facing the African-American community with JFK gone. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was still in Congress and it's passage without Kennedy to push for it was by no means certain. It wasn't certain with him either, but without him it was even more doubtful.

When I got home the Television was on, and it remained on for the next 4 days. My mother and I sat and absorbed every detail, The coverage was nowhere near as good as it would be had it happened today. Considering the available technology at that time, I would have to say that the coverage of JFK's assassination and funeral, including the world's first televised live murder, that of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby, was Televison's finest hour.

That first day, and I think the second day as well, you could not get a telephone line to make a call. The whole country was on the phone...trying to reach relatives and friends, sharing our grief...trying desperately to make sense of something utterly senseless.

Some years ago I visited Washington D.C. with my husband. We visited the U. S. Capitol Building, and made a point of seeing the Rotunda. I just HAD to stand in the center, to stand where JFK's coffin had laid for dignitaries and every-day people to pay their last respects. Some people stood in line well over 24 hrs just to walk past the flag-draped coffin.

I don't know about anyone else that lived through those days, but I still get teary-eyed when I see the Zapruder film of the actual assassination. Not just because of what happened, but because we'll never know what might have been.