Applause for the assassination?

[Len Colby]

Applause for the assassination?

My sister who was 8 when JFK was shot told me some of the kids in her school in North Carolina cheered and applauded when they heard the announcement. A new member of the forum has a similar recollection.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...036entry59036

Has anyone else heard of or witnessed similar incidents?

Edited March 30, 2006 by Len Colby

[Guest John Gillespie]

Len,

I lived in the South, briefly, during the sixties but, still, I'm a bit stunned by this; KIDS, for God's sake.

Just goes to show, once again, any kind of hatred can be taught at the dinner table.

Regards,

JG

[Christopher T. George]

Applause for the assassination?

My sister who was 8 when JFK was shot told me some of the kids in her school in North Carolina cheered and applauded when they heard the announcement. A new member of the forum has a similar recollection.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...036entry59036

Has anyone else heard of or witnessed similar incidents?

Hi Len

I heard a similar report about a women's organization meeting in Baltimore in regard to the assassination of Martin Luther King in March 1968. It was actually an ex-pat group of British women and the woman who led the applaud was a British woman married to a retired U.S. armed forces officer who presumably had right wing views and believed the stories that King was a Communist, etc., or else the reaction was just plain racist.

Chris

Edited March 30, 2006 by Christopher T. George

[Tim Carroll]

I was in Catholic school at the time of JFK's death, so everyone was pretty upset. But a few years later, when Bobby was killed, a friend's father shocked me by saying that it was a great thing for the country.

Tim

[Ron Ecker]

I've previously related that one of the first comments I heard after the news of the assassination was by a fellow student at the University of Florida: "I'm glad they shot the son of a bitch."

[John Simkin]

I'm 58 years old, a native Georgian and am the Senior Corporate Account Executive at Georgia Public Broadcasting. We are the fourth largest PBS network in the US.

I was raised as a Catholic and JFK was one of my heros. I will never forget the scattered cheers in the hallways of the public high school I attended when his being shot was announced on the PA.

[Herb White]

Applause for the assassination?

My sister who was 8 when JFK was shot told me some of the kids in her school in North Carolina cheered and applauded when they heard the announcement. A new member of the forum has a similar recollection.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...036entry59036

Has anyone else heard of or witnessed similar incidents?

[Norman T. Field]

I heard similar stuff in my school, which was on the very liberal and affluent North Shore of Chicago suburbs.

[Len Colby]

Hi Len

I heard a similar report about a women's organization meeting in Baltimore in regard to the assassination of Martin Luther King in March 1968. It was actually an ex-pat group of British women and the woman who led the applaud was a British woman married to a retired U.S. armed forces officer who presumably had right wing views and believed the stories that King was a Communist, etc., or else the reaction was just plain racist.

Chris

Chris,

Was it just that woman or did others join her? This story in a way is worse I would have expected that Brits were less racist than Americans

Len

I'm 58 years old, a native Georgian and am the Senior Corporate Account Executive at Georgia Public Broadcasting. We are the fourth largest PBS network in the US.

I was raised as a Catholic and JFK was one of my heros. I will never forget the scattered cheers in the hallways of the public high school I attended when his being shot was announced on the PA.

John,

Herb, was the new member I was refering to.

Len

Herb,

Welcome to the forum

Len

[Herb White]

Len,

That was me. I was in the ninth grade and we were changing classes at the public school I attended. It really wasn't a big shock, because growing up Catholic in the deep south in the fifties and sixties I was constantly exposed to anti-Catholic bias and resentment. We didn't have it as bad as the blacks, but we were identifiable much of the time because of our school uniforms. Of course, everyone didn't cheer, most people were shocked and saddened.

I've attached parts of a story I've been working on for a while about growing up Catholic in the south during that time and becoming friends with some black guys, through basketball, before integration. It isn't finished, but it gives some perspective if anyone's interested.

Up_and_Down.pdf

[Len Colby]

growing up Catholic in the deep south in the fifties and sixties I was constantly exposed to anti-Catholic bias and resentment.

Herb,

You should have tried growing up Jewish in the South. My sister's name is Audrey, we once had "Here lives Audrey, the Christ killer" painted on the sidewalk in front our house!

Len

[Herb White]

growing up Catholic in the deep south in the fifties and sixties I was constantly exposed to anti-Catholic bias and resentment.

Herb,

You should have tried growing up Jewish in the South. My sister's name is Audrey, we once had "Here lives Audrey, the Christ killer" painted on the sidewalk in front our house!

Len

Oy veh! I only knew of one Jewish kid in the whole school. And only then 'cause everyone would say there goes Bill....he's a jew. I didn't really know what the big deal was. I went to Catholic elementary school for eight years and never heard anything like it.

[Pat Speer]

In the immediate aftermath of the assassination word got out that kids cheered Kennedy's death at an elementary school in Dallas. I believe Dan Rather reported it. If I remember correctly, he later said he regretted doing this, because it convinced a lot of the country that Dallas was somehow responsible for Kennedy's death. And, of course, that just couldn't be, right, Dan?

Edited March 30, 2006 by Pat Speer

[Christopher T. George]

Hi Len

I heard a similar report about a women's organization meeting in Baltimore in regard to the assassination of Martin Luther King in March 1968. It was actually an ex-pat group of British women and the woman who led the applaud was a British woman married to a retired U.S. armed forces officer who presumably had right wing views and believed the stories that King was a Communist, etc., or else the reaction was just plain racist.

Chris

Chris,

Was it just that woman or did others join her? This story in a way is worse I would have expected that Brits were less racist than Americans

Len

Hi Len

It was my mother who experienced the incident. I will ask if she recalls whether others joined in. My mother was taken aback by that reaction to the slaying of MLK and I suspect others at the meeting were as well.

On the other hand politics can drive people to extremes. One of my other interests is the War of 1812. An early "hero" of mine was Levi Hollingsworth, a Baltimore manufacturer who owned a copper rolling mill on the Gunpowder river that supplied the copper for the Bulfinch dome of the Capitol prior to the present dome. He was wounded in the arm at the Battle of North Point September 12, 1814, and it was a letter of his about the battle that I found in my early research that made him a figure of interest to me. However, I felt less well about him when I found out that he was one of the witnesses to the vicious anti-Federalist riot in July 1812 that led to the death of one Federalist, a Revolutionary War hero named General James Lingan, and the torture of a number of other Federalists who opposed the war. Hollingsworth made the remark that the all of the Federalists deserved killing. There were some 20-30 of the Federalists in Baltimore in a house on South Charles Stret to put out a Federalist newspaper whose newspaper office was wrecked by the anti-war mob a month earlier. They included Revolutionary War hero General Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, Robert E. Lee's father, who was tortured but survived the abuse of the mob.

All my best

Chris

Edited March 30, 2006 by Christopher T. George

[Antti Hynonen]

Perry Raymond Russo, plays a part in the movie JFK as a patron in "Napoleons" bar. He is one of few who applaud and cheer (in the movie) once Kennedy's death is announced on TV.

I assume the applauds were somewhat common, as we may gather from the expereinces conveyed in this thread. Too bad the US was already so divided in 1963.