On November 22. 1963 I was 10 years old and sitting at my desk in Ms Addie P. Owens’ fifth grade class at 139th Street Elementary School in Compton, California. The day was sunny but cool and we were doing what most 5th graders do, paying attention to the teacher but waiting for the bell to signal the end of another day.
All of a sudden, the principal’s office called with an urgent notification of the death of our President, John F. Kennedy. The silence in the room was stunning, as you could imagine 5th graders that keep up a continuous banter under most circumstances, but there was a surreal quality to those moments after that announcement that seemingly hovered above us as the importance of what was said just couldn’t be true.
Prior to Kennedy’s assassination, we had been reviewing all of the innovations that this President had initiated and how he was making the changes in our society that would be a benefit to everyone. Being Black and having a very real bird’s eye view of all of the things that were happening, in regard to civil rights and the discussions that Martin Luther King had been bringing to the forefront and Malcolm X extolling the realities that this society had been allowing to occur, this President was our knight in shining armor.
The news was to say the least, devastating. Everyone was in tears as the reality of the news took hold.
As we grew older, those moments seemed to permeate themselves in ways that we could not explain. Definitive movements within our government suddenly took on a new texture and the beginnings that this President had initiated were carried through. With the wonders that presented themselves in entities like the Peace Corps and our race to space, it had seemed like the sky was not the limit and for the first time it seemed that we had had a President that truly cared about the stature of all men, regardless of ethnicity.
In conclusion, the true pressures that the diversity of this country can impose on any individual can be insurmountable, however, in the time that this President held the reigns, he proved that an individual could have a lasting impact regardless of the opposition resorting to violence to quell their voice.
By: C. Gerald Crittendon
Guest Contributor
ReelUrbanNews.com
