JFK: 50 years on, millennials cross-examine boomer veneration

By Lisa Maria Garza



"Most students, it's fair to say, just know that JFK is the president who got shot. Beyond that, they're pretty much blank slates," Stone said.


"They don't know much about his presidency or why anyone would have wanted him dead," Stone said.

Many millennials - those who came of age after 2000 - will meet the anniversary with a shrug. Some may watch the Zapruder film of the motorcade on YouTube or follow the "#JFK" hashtag on Twitter.


"Our professors are exposing us to different writers who show multiple images of him as a person, not just a president, and we have to interpret that for ourselves," Fisher said.

Stone and Simon have presented contradictory works about Kennedy's administration and encouraged students to examine various assassination conspiracies.


Scott Reich, who wrote the recently released book "The Power of Citizenship: Why John F. Kennedy Matters to a New Generation," said the anniversary is diverting the attention of younger Americans toward conspiracy theories and away from the enduring values of the Kennedy years. As boomers die off, it's questionable whether the younger generation will absorb more than what they need to regurgitate for a history exam, he said.

"In looking at Kennedy's presidency, I believe we can learn quite a bit about our responsibilities as individuals and how we can work together to achieve big goals as he did with the Peace Corps, the race to the moon, and civil rights," Reich said.




John Bewick, a graduate student studying nuclear science, waited for hours to hear Kennedy speak at the University of Michigan during the 1960 campaign. While he discussed the concept of public service overseas, it wasn't yet part of his campaign message.

"As we're trying to figure out what we're going to do with our lives, it was a compelling moment," Bewick said.


"That was just a horrible moment. But it didn't deter anybody from what we committed to do," said Bewick, who later became an environmental consultant.


The four days between the assassination and the Kennedy funeral transfixed the world. John Christopher, then a 10th grader in Fort Worth, where Kennedy's motorcade passed before going to Dallas, helped spread the news about the shooting.

"I was paperboy for the Fort Worth Star Telegram and delivered five extra afternoon runs that day," Christopher said.

The morning headline of three benign words - "WELCOME, MR. PRESIDENT" - was replaced by the later edition's shattering five: "KENNEDY SLAIN, CONNALLY ALSO HIT."



"All heroes have their flaws and hidden faces - no one is a one-dimensional caricature," Huff said. "JFK made mistakes. Our class readings force us to question the image that we've learned to love of this mythic president." (Editing by Jon Herskovitz and Prudence Crowther)


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