FILE PHOTO | ASSOCIATED PRESS
Oxford as well as the rest of the country will be commemorating
former President John F. Kennedy’s assassination this Friday, marking
the 50th anniversary of his death.
Kennedy was assassinated by a sniper at noon on Nov. 22, 1963, while riding in a motorcade running through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.
His death affected the entire nation.
At the Beacon on an early Friday morning, we find Less and Jane Breed, along with Anthony Pulliam, eating breakfast. All remember Kennedy’s assassination clearly.
According to Jane Breed, who was 22 and living in Oxford, the Oxford community had mixed reactions to Kennedy’s death.
“Well it was sad,” she said. “Everyone was sad at the event, but you know JFK caused such a riot and uproar at Ole Miss.”
Jane Breed refers to when James D. Meredith was admitted to the university in 1962 as the first black person to ever attend Ole Miss. When violence threatened his safety on campus grounds, Kennedy ordered troops from the Mississippi National Guard as well as troops from Ft. Benning, Ga., to protect one of the most prominent figures in the civil rights movement.
While the community around Less Breed was mournful, he tried to logically approach the assassination.
“I think the risk came with the job,” he said. “You take the job, you take the risks.”
Pulliam’s household and immediate community within Oxford harbored mixed feelings.
“My wife was a big JFK person,” he said. “She was sad. But I didn’t really care.”
Pulliam was 20 years old and helping his family moving a colt from Jimmy Faulkner’s horse farm when he heard about Kennedy’s death on the radio.
“My family had a horse farm, and I trained them,” he said. “Jimmy Faulkner was William Faulkner’s cousin, and we were buying a horse from him that day. Damn horse kicked me.”
Their individual reactions when they heard of JFK’s assassination were mixed. Jane Breed remembers the sadness she felt as she watched the news on TV.
“I was uncertain,” she said. “I really didn’t like Johnson, so I wasn’t all that sure of what was coming.”
While most were grieving that day, Pulliam said he was unfazed by the murder.
“I’ve been a strong, hardline Republican my whole life,” he said. “I didn’t like JFK much at all. So I really didn’t care. It was what was coming after that we were all afraid of.”
What Pulliam was dreading, specifically, was Kennedy’s successor and vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson.
“As awful as JFK was, considering Johnson, we would have been better off with JFK.”
His statement was promptly followed by his suspicions about the assassination. He, like many others, claimed international forces were behind the assassination.
“I suspect the Russians were behind the killing,” he said.
Less Breed was 25 years old and was teaching a class at the University of Oklahoma the year of the assassination. When he heard the news from a student in his classroom, he refused to believe it.
“I thought it was false reporting at first,” he said.
Although the death was unexpected and tragic, Less Breed nonetheless trusted the American government after the tragedy.
“I didn’t think there was going to be a big difference,” he said. “There is a system in place for a reason, and I trusted the system.”
-Amina Al Sherif
aalsher@go.olemiss.edu
