I have already written about where I was and what I was doing when Pres. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. I repeat a shortened version of the story to make an important point. I was teaching at a new school in New Orleans, a private one. There were 3 classes of 5 grade classes, all near each other. During time for lunch, Mrs. Flagg had her pupils eat in the classroom (we had no cafeteria) and enjoy a bit of play. One pupil had brought a small transistor radio, and Mrs. Flagg called me into her room to listen to something special. The 3 of us craned our necks over the small radio, trying to hear over the din of the rest of the pupils at play.
I heard the news, and then had to return to my class. I was absent for only a few minutes, for it is not wise to leave a class unattended for any length of time. I reentered, closed the door behind me, and announced, "I just heard on the radio that Pres. Kennedy has been shot it Dallas." Immediately, the kids erupted in cheers and applause. One girl was the exception; she placed her head on a table and cried. I was shocked by the reaction, and for once, angry at my pupils. I said, "You think this is the end of integration. That segregation in the South is now safe (almost all of us assumed the President had been killed to halt integration.)" Then I told them of the assassination of Pres. Lincoln at the end of the Civil War, and how some thought that would restore victory to the South. Instead, it only made the North more determined to destroy slavery and the old Southern way of life.
I repeat this story because the website vdare has an article by Hugh McInnis who was teaching at a public school in a small town in central Alabama. When the news came over the loudspeaker that Pres. Kennedy had been killed, his students also cheered. I recall a guest on a news program earlier this year who was in Florida when Kennedy was killed. Again, the school children cheered.
Only with all the news on TV about the 50th anniversary of the assassination did I hear of the story of how CBS reporter Dan Rather was almost fired in November 1963. Rather, who worked for the Dallas affiliate of CBS, KRLD, reported that school children at a school in Dallas cheered the news of the assassination. His superiors were outraged. No. It must have been that they were cheering the news that they would be dismissed from school early as a result of the assassination. Apparently, the school officials did not want the reputation of the institution besmirched with such a report about its students. They were going to fire Rather, when national CBS intervened to save his job. The pupils WERE cheering the assassination of Kennedy, and then they were happy to be released from school.
I have heard that there were many schools in the South where students cheered in celebration of the killing of Kennedy and "his integrationist policies." But there was almost no reporting of this.
I think that one reason for the silence was that when Oswald was found, and deemed the assassin, he was also labeled a Communist. And with that news, some people reacted, "Oh, isn't it awful what that Communist did (in killing Kennedy)? And then they would smile or wink.
Once the villain was labeled as a Red, those who initially cheered the deed, suddenly pretended to be sad. The myth was that no one would celebrate the killing of Kennedy and Camelot - except a lone, nut Commie. I think this refusalt to report the truth about the cheering was one of the first examples of a cover-up in the assassination of Pres. John Kennedy.---------Hugh Murray
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