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  • Assassination and Commemoration: JFK, Dallas, and the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza by Stephen Fagin
  • Mark Stanley
Assassination and Commemoration: JFK, Dallas, and the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. By Stephen Fagin. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013. Pp. 173. Illustrations, color plates, notes, bibliography, index.)

“Shared experience” is a term that often comes to mind in times of national tragedy, and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas is perhaps the foremost example. Americans dropped what they were doing and watched [End Page 104] events unfold on live television for the next three days. Dallas, a city of intense civic pride, was both embarrassed and shamed under a world media spotlight. Soon the city gained the reputation of being a “city of hate” and as Conover Hunt, one of the founders of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, noted, “the only city that has even been accused . . . of killing a president” (44, xv). The story of the museum, as told by Stephen Fagin, its chief curator and historian, is as much of reconciliation and rehabilitation for the city as it is of commemoration of Kennedy and his presidency.

Dallas’s reputation for hateful behavior predated Kennedy’s visit to the city. In an earlier visit Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, was greeted by jeering. In the days immediately before Kennedy’s visit, Dallas radicals circulated flyers with his picture and the header “Wanted for Treason” (25). The Dallas Morning News printed an advertisement paid for by the “American Fact-finding Committee” with a header stating “Welcome Mr. President” that was followed by a litany of complaints that made it apparent Kennedy was anything but welcome (25). After the assassination, enmity toward Dallas worsened. That Sunday, the Dallas Cowboys were booed as they entered the field for an away game with the Cleveland Browns. Traveling businessmen and local officials faced an uphill battle when trying to promote the city, wherever they went. James F. Chambers, publisher of the Dallas Times Herald, noted the city’s association with Kennedy’s death, “killed us as a city” (17).

The Texas School Book Depository building and Dealey Plaza became a focal point of interest surrounding Kennedy and the assassination. By 1970, debate raged about the future of the then unused building. Many Dallasites favored its demolition. Others favored turning it into a monument to Kennedy. Meanwhile the building drew a steady stream of out-of-town visitors to become the “most photographed” building in the city (56). After much soul-searching, the shamed residents of Dallas voted to purchase the building for office space. Preservationists hoped to establish a museum. By 1979, planners began work to establish an exhibit to educate visitors. In 1982, museum proponents established the Dallas County Historical Foundation to raise funds, with plans to open by the twenty-fifth anniversary of Kennedy’s death. Project leaders instinctively avoided distasteful or graphic displays or anything lending credence to conspiracy theories. Final exhibits include visual and audio media that greatly enhance the experience of visitors as well as the Warren Commission’s model of Dealey Plaza now on indefinite loan from the National Archives. The “Sniper’s Perch” painstakingly recreates Oswald’s vantage point above the plaza. The museum opened to the public in February 1989 and has been one of Dallas’s major attractions since.

At the time, the national press reported that the opening “symbolized Dallas’s ability . . . to come to grips with its painful past” (xv). Perhaps. But more likely, the city recognized that people will never forget Kennedy, the assassination, or Dallas’s role in it. The mission of the Sixth Floor Museum has been to tell the story openly, honestly, and accurately, especially to generations who have no direct recollection of the event. In doing so, maybe the city will finally be forgiven. In telling the museum’s story, Fagin has surely helped the process. [End Page 105]

Mark Stanley
University of North Texas at Dallas
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