JFK: The 50th

Posted on November 22, 2013 Updated on November 22, 2013

It has been quite a while, I know. I apologize for that! Life just gets in the way, you know…

But it’s a perfect time for me to write something. My favorite president in history, up there next to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton was assassinated 50 years ago today. That is a big deal to me. As long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by JFK’s legacy and his short time in the White House. While he didn’t get to be President for very long, he did serve as a great Congressman and United States Senator before becoming President. He was a President who was concerned with civil rights and equality, a concept that many people at the time were not very much in agreeance with. I have a quote that I will always remember, that I have always used whenever asked for a favorite quote, a profound quote, or just a random quote. It is even in my list of quotes on Facebook 🙂 The quote is usually an abridged version of this:

“We need not accept that view. Our problems are man-made — therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable — and we believe they can do it again.”

This message of perseverance may not mean much to many other people, but it has also spoken to me somehow. Kennedy said these words in a speech at American University on June 10, 1963, a little over 5 months before his tragic departure.

There are all kinds of propositions and reasonings and conspiracies as to how he died–how he was killed. While the general reasoning is that he was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, who was himself shot not long after the President’s death, this is becoming an increasingly doubted claim as time goes on. Many think the Warren Commission or Lyndon B. Johnson is responsible. Or Russian spies, or Cuban spies…or J. Edgar Hoover. As for my own thoughts, I will say that no one knows who is responsible for it. As much as many people believe that their own theories are the correct ones, the truth is that no one knows. The only person who really knows is the person who pulled the trigger in Dallas that day…who is still (and probably will be forever) under debate.

I don’t like to dwell too much in conspiracy theories because they sometimes place blame on people who might be completely innocent. I heard someone say recently that LBJ was responsible and that someone should have assassinated him also. What if he didn’t? Why would you wish that kind of misfortune on a person? No one knows. After all, isn’t the saying “innocent until proven guilty?” Unfortunately, we will never know what happened on  November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. We won’t know who cut short the life of one of (in my opinion) the greatest leaders of modern history. Who created a widow out of Jacqueline Kennedy, and left Caroline and John, Jr. fatherless. The Kennedy family in general has been known to see a great, almost unusual deal of misfortune, and this tragedy is only one of many. There are many articles on the “Kennedy Curse” which outline all known misfortunes of the Kennedy family and their chronological order.

I hope that today’s leaders can learn from the things that JFK was allowed to teach us in his short time here.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy
May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963