Written by Courtney Tierney. Media by Fallyn Paruleski.
As the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination comes upon us – the actual date being November 22, 1963 -I find myself reflecting on this tragic event. After being shot during a presidential motorcade, it was reported that Lee Harvey Oswald was the actual shooter, but many think that there were others involved and that this was involved in some kind of conspiracy theory. Today, people still have many speculations and are still coming up with different conspiracy theories, trying to understand exactly happened that day.
As I said above, after his assassination, there were many conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination, and there are still developing theories going around today, even 50 years later. To be honest, before writing this article, I knew of his assassination and such, but I was not very cultured on the different theories that have been going around for 50 years. After doing a bit of research into these theories, I’ve found that some think that having these conspiracy theories still circulating around in a way keeps JFK alive and remembered somehow. From an article posted on Fox 2 St. Louis online Post historian Jeff Nilsson comments on the conspiracy theories saying “I think this could never really end, and I don’t know that people want it to end. In a way, the conspiracy theories keep John Kennedy partially alive we never really let him go”. I would have to agree with him. Of course, we write books, biographies, etc. as other ways to keep him alive as well, but I think that these conspiracy theories are more ways to make sure that he is remembered and for people to continue talking about him, his life and his death. At this point, there is probably no way for us to actually figure out and know exactly what happened, what was going through Lee Harvey Oswald’s head, or why what happened happened. We can only wonder and remember JFK for the man he was.
50 years ago, a great man, a leader of our country, was shot and killed in the presence of his wife, the governor of Texas, and a great deal of American citizens. Throughout his term as the 35th president of the United States (which was only a little over 2 years), JFK was a highly liked and ranked president and did many great things during his time in office. It is sad that someone can hate someone so much or dislike what they stand for so much that they would resort to the extreme measure of assassinating him.
As this 50th anniversary approaches and comes, I encourage you, if you don’t already know much about him, take the time to research a bit about JFK, his life and his presidency, and take a moment to reflect on this day and anniversary.
