The Day Kennedy Died: 50 Years Later LIFE Remembers the Man and the Moment

1/20/63

One More Artifact

We have already traveled back in time in these pages and often then have brought things up to date. Fifty years ago, Dealey Plaza had little to do with John Fitzgerald Kennedy—a town square through which the motorcade passed on its way to the Trade Mart—and today it has everything to do with him, and the artifacts you have seen on the previous pages rest there, visited daily by people who are captivated by history or by the man himself.

One of the reasons we pay such attention 50 years later is because of the riveting impact Kennedy made on the national consciousness when he came on the scene. Rarely do things change overnight with the election of a politician, but something—not necessarily policy, not necessarily anything tangible—changed overnight when Kennedy became our leader. When, during that 14-minute inaugural address, which we visit one last time in the picture on this page, he challenged us to “Ask not...,” many listeners were instantly energized, and somehow all of us became younger. Kennedy allowed us to feel that way until the day of his death.

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