Dallas Museum Honors President Kennedy’s Legacy

November 20, 2013

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, put the Texas School Book Depository building on the map of history. Despite several efforts to tear down the notorious structure over the decades, the old warehouse is now both a museum about the tragedy, and a memorial to the slain president.

The shots that rang out over Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, lasted just under six seconds. It brought an end to Kennedy’s life, but marked the beginning of a decades-long struggle for a city to come to terms with its role in one of the most infamous moments in American history.

“That really cast a shadow on it," said Dallas deputy sheriff Gene Boone, who was one of the first law enforcement officers to react to the shooting. The city lost more than just a president that day, Boone said.

“We were almost afraid to go outside the community and let anybody know we were from Dallas.”

City leaders have long struggled to balance the reality of the assassination with the way it negatively - and unfairly - reflected on the city, said Southern Methodist University History Professor Jeffrey Engel.

“The event was really a source of great shame for Dallas, which I think Dallas is still dealing with 50 years later. For most Dallas residents of this time, they’ve essentially been trying to get out from under that shadow and tell the rest of the world, 'this is not who we are, this is not how we want to be remembered, and this is frankly not the image we want to present to the world,'” Engel said.