The President was travelling with his wife Jacqueline and Texas Governor, John Connally, also with his wife, when he was fatally shot by a sniper, Lee Harvey Oswald, who was hiding in a nearby building.
The assassination evoked a stunned reaction worldwide and in America that fateful day people wept openly and gathered in department stores to watch the television coverage. Traffic in some areas ground to a halt as the news spread. Schools dismissed their students early.
The event left a lasting impression throughout the world and many people today can remember where they were the day that President Kennedy was shot.
NOVEMBER 1963
The motorcade moves steadily,
as time does, towards history.
Three limousines, sedate and slow,
glide through the Dallas noonday glow.
A white Ford leads, while, at the back,
sleek as a shark, a Cadillac
and in between, smooth chrome and mirrors,
a Lincoln Continental purrs.
Outriders, vigilant and keen,
tough cops, cool, muscular and lean,
on Harley-Davidsons, survey
a festive, jubilant display.
The President, young, debonair,
beneath a boyish mop of hair,
shares with the world his winning smile,
his charismatic sense of style.
His modish wife, serene and proud,
waves to the rapt, adoring crowd
of smiling faces, black and white,
expressions optimistic, bright,
that sways excitedly to cheer
as, steadfastly, the drivers steer
to Dealey Plaza up ahead,
a routine job, no cause for dread,
nothing to hint that, from today,
small screens will constantly replay
the coming moments, frame by frame,
as devotees call out his name,
JFK, Kennedy ... a hymn.
The noonday light appears to swim
as, past the captivated throng,
three cars cruise steadily along,
one hard-top car, two open-top,
into the moment time will stop,
into to the space that fate dictates
where Oswald, the assassin, waits.
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