Reflecting on the day of November 22, 1963 in Dallas
By Dr. Phillip L. Wright Sr.
I can recall when I was just 15-years-old; I traveled with Television Comedy Show Star Flip Wilson to Boston for an Entertainment engagement. We had to stop when we got to Washington due to the snow storm. We couldn’t find a hotel room to rent since it was during President Kennedys’ Inauguration so we spent the night in a parking car garage until the next day of the actual Inauguration. I was extremely excited, having realized this was a most important and historical day event. We made it on to Boston and I stayed for three months performing then returning to Miami and my family and school. During the day of our President’s assassination on November 22, 1963 in the afternoon in Dallas, I was sitting outside of our house in the James E. Scott Housing development. I was in Miami sitting in a car with our Afro Beats band Bass Player listening to the latest tunes on the radio, when the announcement was interrupted on the radio saying, “President Kennedy has just been shot.”
A silence came over me and the Bass Player.
However, a few minutes later they announced once again but sadly it was for sure, our President Kennedy was already dead. Everyone outside from all directions must have heard the radio or television about his death, and we all were crying in a tremendous heartfelt sadness. I was 18-years-old. Even today 50 years later, I am still saddened of that day and how it affected me, and how things have changed with accomplishments, trials and difficult decisions our Government had to make after President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in on the Presidential Plane Air Force One while still on the ground. We must all remember to pray that since then we must have had to learn more of how to treat each other and to continue moving our country forward, as something America has always been able to do in any type of situation in the past, so let us begin Americans citi-zens and our Government elected officials everywhere.
gspinc2006@att.net
