Black Friday
November 22, 2010 (Monday)
The biggest shopping day of the year is the day after Thanksgiving. It is known as, “Black Friday.” The Police Department of Philadelphia called it that in 1966 because it brought massive traffic jams and over-crowding.
When I hear the words, however, I think of November 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Huge billboards gave it that name, 47 years ago.
My family and I were living in Dallas on that day. Our children were very young. Wanda was busy about the house, and I was following the day’s events on television.
Early that morning, President Kennedy spoke in the parking lot of the Texas Hotel in Fort Worth, where they then attended a breakfast inside; there Mrs. Kennedy was presented with the beautiful yellow roses she later carried in the Dallas motorcade.
The rainy clouds in Dallas cleared away, as if swept by a giant hand, and Dallas was treated to clear skies and a beautiful day. Upon their arrival in Dallas, The Kennedys, Johnsons, and Connallys took their places in the limousines, and and were driven down Lemmon Avenue towards downtown, carefully following the published route. Friendly crowds greeted them as they smiled and waved.
I was listening on the radio and watching on television when I heard the announcement that gunshots had been heard along the route of the parade. The cars carrying the presidential party sped to Parkland hospital and the news was spread that Kennedy and Connally had been shot. Connally later recovered from his wounds, but now we know that the president had died at the scene of the shootings.
Living in Dallas that day, with the entire world focused on us, gave me a weird feeling. On that day, the world sat in judgment on Dallas. For many months afterward, telling someone I was from Dallas evoked bitter responses from people I met in other places.
It happened on this day, November 22. In three years, we will observe the 50th anniversary of that terrible event. The shots in Dealey Plaza were truly “the shots heard around the world.”
The church there was full the next Sunday.
Dealey Plaza
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