President John F. Kennedy[/caption]Carol Forsloff---How much we remember, how much we forget, about the Kennedy years. For those good old days were good in many ways but were difficult for others, before the heralding of civil rights, the poverty programs, environmental legislation and women's rights and issues that made a difference in the upcoming years, that were the dreams of the fallen President.
President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. Almost everyone who was alive during that time recalls what he or she was doing at the time. Few of us, however, remember, or even think about, what we did or didn't have. The time of promise that folks remember and associated with Kennedy seemed to hold less promise for those still struggling with getting jobs with equal pay and opportunity and finding a ladder of success that would allow achievement like others.
Civil rights legislation passed in 1964. Womens rights became the hue and cry of those years, along with the rights of African Americans with the passage of the Civil Rights Act. President Lyndon Johnson was able to put into law the dreams of his predecessor, while Kennedy remained the symbol of the new freedoms. He set the tone for the accomplishments of others, and it is that tone that made the difference. But his death also brought about a change in the perception of government and faith in the future. For with the President's assassination came the questions about who, why, how he was killed and what would it mean for the direction of the country.
As the social programs came to fruition, the tone began to shift to one of shrillness, of “I want it now” and what can my country do for me as opposed to the phrase, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” The age of service and of opportunity has transformed into the Age of Entitlements instead.
The watershed moment of the Kennedy assassination meant a shift in values, but that shift came several years after the death of Kennedy. People remembered his dreams and ambitions, and so government programs developed to take care of the poor, the oppressed, and those unable to care for themselves. But as the memory of the assassination remained, the memory of the Kennedy dream has faded, replaced by the dissensions of those who follow less the dream than the Ayn Rand formula instead, of personal independence, lack of faith in anything other than oneself and the need to look out for Number 1 regardless. So as generations come and go, those children of the 60's have become the retirees of today, or the groups who looked at those Kennedy years as transitions with programs that were terminal, as the nation would prosper soon. Those who didn't were left behind in the transitions to those different views, less optimistic and more punitive, more fearful today of socialism in ways that speak more of the 1950's and the era of Joseph McCarthy then the dreams of John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy's dreams remain unrealized in the way envisioned in those years of his Presidency. The message of the day for those who remember him and grieve his loss, that we remember the dreamer and seek to honor him with our words and deeds.
In memorial is this original song, “O Captain, My Captain, “with the lyrics once written for President Abraham Lincoln, who was also assassinated and whose death also denied his dreams of equality and reversed many of them in the years to come. It is a lesson for us all, that what makes a great man are those dreams; and those who want to follow these men must not ever give them up.
