Forty-four year ago, yesterday, while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a presidential motorcade through Dallas’ Dealy Plaza, President was assassinated and the world has never seem to totally recover. It was as if the innocence of the 1950’s was gone in the reported seven seconds it took the bullets to fire and reach their mark.

It was one of those seminal moments in history when the world’s population knew, and still knows to this date, exactly where they were and what they were doing on November 22^nd,1963 at 12:30pm CST.

I remember that I was sitting in my 4^th grade classroom when the Vice Principal walked in unannounced and whispered something into my teacher’s ear which caused her to immediately cover her mouth with both hands as she simultaneously fell back a couple of steps in apparent disbelief over what she had been told. She then swelled up in tears and started to sob, obviously trying desperately to curb her emotions. Now everybody knows that when adults cry, children sense the moment and follow suit crying in unison, most times not knowing why….and that’s what happened.

It was then that an announcement was made on the PA system that our President had been shot and that we would be going home early and we were then asked us to prepare to go in an orderly manner. “Orderly manner?” A strange phrase considering the chaos brought on by an assassin’s bullets.

There is much that I remember that day, however the two things that I remember most is the one described above and the walk home from school that day. It was as if the world suffered a mortal wound that would never heal. I saw strangers; men, women and children crying in the street, unashamed to wear their emotions proudly because JFK was gone.

Some assassinations in the course of history, specifically those of despots, dictators and mass murderers have had a positive impact on the world however there were  three assassinations that occurred that decade that changed forever the course of events that followed since. It seems to me, as “child of the 60s” that the eternal optimism my generation shared was gone and has not yet returned.

As I reflect on the morale of our nation it is easy for me to see that the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King was more than the deaths a three great men…it was the demise  of our moral compass for they lead the “promised land” they so eloquently spoke of.