Introduction: In this article, Katie Rebecca Merkley looks at some of the newspaper coverage of the sad day on 22 November 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Katie specializes in U.S. research for family history, enjoys writing and researching, and is developing curricula for teaching children genealogy. She has a website: krgarnergenealogy.com

When a significant tragedy strikes, it’s all over the news. In November 1963, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline were on tour in Texas when a sniper shot him in Dallas on Nov. 22. He was taken to the hospital, where he died of his wounds. His funeral was held in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 25.

The shocking event was in all the newspapers, of course, and here are a few examples of the coverage.

This article focuses on Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy’s response before, during, and after the assassination. This had been her first political tour with her husband since his 1960 campaign.

This article reports:

She [Jacqueline] shook hands, smiled and drew bravos from crowds in San Antonio, Houston, Fort Worth and – along the motorcade route where the assassin waited – in Dallas.

…Only Thursday night, speaking in fluent Spanish to a Latin-American audience in Houston, she had praised the great state of Texas.

She had seemed pleased with her reception and with the welcome for her husband.

Here is a close-up of this article’s photo.

Just minutes before a bullet crashed into her husband’s head, she had told him, “You can’t say Dallas wasn’t friendly to you.”

As her husband toppled forward in the rear seat of the limousine, Mrs. Kennedy instinctively fell to the floor to hold him.

She stroked his brow. At the hospital, she helped carry him onto a litter brought out of the emergency ward.

Mrs. Kennedy walked into the hospital at the side of her dying husband.

Even in sorrow she was a striking figure in her bright pink wool suit and pink pillbox hat over her dark hair.

She did not speak. Her husband died as she waited outside the room where… surgeons were taking desperate measures.

She returned to Washington to her young children. The coffin containing President Kennedy’s body was also on that plane. It was reported that the tears came on the flight home.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy’s vice president, became the next president. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

This article reports:

In an official proclamation, one of his first acts as president, Lyndon B. Johnson declared Monday a day of national mourning for his predecessor, felled by a sniper’s bullet in an act that “outrages decent men.”

…As commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces, John F. Kennedy held abundant right to a grave in the honored military cemetery.

But he was a war hero as well, having recovered from a serious wound as a Navy lieutenant in World War II, only to be struck down on a Dallas street by a sniper’s bullets.

Filling the capital’s vast St. Matthew’s Cathedral Monday for the funeral services and paying their respects at the graveside will be some of the world’s greatest dignitaries.

As these world leaders converged on Washington, hundreds of people ranging from the bereaved family to the late President’s most bitter political foes filed slowly past his bier in the black draped East Room of the White House.

First came Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy, widowed at 34, and members of the immediate family. Then President Johnson and his wife, accompanied by former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and afterward former President Harry Truman and other high officials.

Sunday the closed casket will lie at the Capitol after a solemn procession through the streets of Washington. At noon (Dallas time) the cortege will move from the White House along Pennsylvania Avenue to Constitution Avenue, then along Constitution to Delaware Avenue to the Capitol Plaza – the route Kennedy rode in triumph at his inaugural a little less than three years ago.

This article describes the family that President Kennedy left behind: his wife Jacqueline was widowed at 34; and his children were Caroline, nearly six; and John Jr., almost three.

This article reports:

It was no surprise to many that Mrs. Kennedy brought the children. Her husband’s great sense of history had prompted her, and she has always wanted the family to share together in its life – the good and the bad. She knew her husband always liked to take the children along with him. Sometimes she had to put her foot down because of the attention they got.

Caroline Sunday had the look of a child who understood the solemn occasion. Her face was pale. Occasionally she would look up at her mother, as if for reassurance.

John Jr. – often referred to as “John-John” – had heard the 21-gun salute many times on happier occasions, but somehow the silence that prevailed and the sad faces around him kept the active little boy quiet as the honors were rendered to his father.

…Just before the eulogies began, John-John got restless and wanted to make friends around him. He was led away by a naval aide.

Caroline stayed with her mother through the eulogies. Sometimes she would reach up and grab her mother’s hand, as she had done often with her daddy. The little girl knew that she must be very quiet, but sometimes she would stare at the high, painted ceiling of the rotunda in fascination. Other times she would scratch her knee or swing her arms.

The article includes this photo.

Were you alive in November 1963 when these events took place? If not, have your parents or grandparents told you about this tragic day?

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Note on the header image: President John F. Kennedy, photographed in the Oval Office, 11 July 1963. Credit: Cecil Stoughton, White House; National Archives and Records Administration; Wikimedia Commons.