Reply #86: Sixth Grade Class in Texas.

[David Zephyr]

My best friend, Gregory, had just shaken the President's hand at Houston's Hobby Airport ust days earlier. Our friend, Kay, came up to us in the caffeteria and said she'd heard that the President had been shot. Greg became furious at her and told her not to joke about such things.

Not much longer in our classroom, our teacher broke down as he informed us that President Kennedy was dead. I will never forget the voice of this one boy shouting in jubilation, "The nigger-lover is dead!" The teacher admonished him and dismissed the class.

Alone, I walked across the school playground and down two long blocks to my home where I found my mom and sister sitting in front of our Raytheon "black and white TV".

During and after the 1960 election, I had kept a black and white poster of John Kennedy on the wall above my bed. The poster had been a gift from my friend Greg, whose father was active in local Democratic politics. I kept that poster of JFK up on my wall until I left home at 17.