"Three Shots Were Fired" - Remembering JFK on the 50th anniversary of his death

On the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assignation (November 22, 2013), I wanted to share the Newseum exhibit "Three Shots Were Fired" with you. It is the second temporary exhibit about John F. Kennedy currently installed at the Newseum.

 Image from "Creating Camelot" exhibit

To get to the second exhibit on JFK, you need to get to the top floor of the Newseum. The easiest way to do that from the ground floor is to take the museum's glass elevators up to the top of the building. If it's a nice day outside, you should take the terrace route to the other side of the top floor. From the terrace you can get some of the best views of the Capital and Pennsylvania Ave. 

 The Capital (and the Canadian Embassy)

Pennsylvania Ave

The second exhibit devoted to JFK at the Newseum is a much more somber experience than the first. Which is to be expected, given the subject matter. The exhibit "Three Shots Were Fired" focuses on that fateful day in Dallas, TX when President John F. Kennedy became the 4th American president to be killed in office. 

The exhibit begin with Kennedy's arrival in Dallas.  The Kennedy's were on a short goodwill trip to Texas, beginning first in San Antonio and scheduled to end at Vice President Johnson's ranch in Johnson City. On November 22, 1963 at 11:40 (CST), Air Force One arrived in Dallas. 

At 12:30pm (CST), less than an hour after arriving in Dallas, President John F. Kennedy was shot. And pandemonium broke out.

That pandemonium was captured on live TV, with reports breaking on all networks. It is this live coverage that the exhibit focuses on. In the first room focuses on the motorcade's race to Parkland Hospital and the first announcements of the attack on JFK. The live coverage of the events following Kennedy's assignation was unprecedented. And it is the video of that live coverage that draws the visitor into the first room in the exhibit.

The didactics in this room cover the moments directly before and after those fateful three shots rang out. The objects in the room are related to the radio and television coverage from that day.

Even though the video is technically at the end of the exhibit design for the room, it is the first thing that people fixate on. And for some visitors, it appears to be the only thing in the room.

The rest of the exhibit looks at more of the particulars of the case surrounding Kenendy's assignation. From panels exploring the Zapruder film to retracing the exact root the motorcade took that day to Kennedy's funeral, the exhibit fully covers America’s obsession with the president’s assignation. 

And just like in the Berlin Wall exhibit, walking through this JFK exhibit with my mother added a whole other perspective to the experience. She was a young girl in 1963, but clearly remembers where she was when she got the news of his assignation. To her this wasn’t a historical event, it was one of the most important events during her childhood. 

At the end of the exhibit there is a wall where visitors can share their memories of where they were when Kennedy was shot. It was a nice way to bring the visitors into the exhibit, although there were many examples that simply said, “Not born.” 

But no matter what age you are, this exhibit reminds you of all the hope the country had surrounding the young president and what possibilities were lost on that November day, 50 years ago. 

"Three Shots Were Fired" will be open at the Newseum through January 5, 2014.