JFK assassination: 10 'where I was' stories

"November 22, 1963" gathers dozens of "where I was" stories from the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

10. Sarah. T Hughes

AP
John F. Kennedy (l.) and Lyndon B. Johnson (r.)

Hughes, a US district court judge, conducted the swearing-in of President Lyndon B. Johnson

"It was a beautiful sight, the presidential plane, long and sleek, a blue and two white stripes running the length of the plane, with the words, 'The United States of America' on the blue stripe. It seemed to exemplify the strength and courage of our country.... Mr. and Mrs. Johnson had been my friends for many years, but on such an occasion, there did not seem to be anything to say. I embraced them both, for that was the best way to give expression to my feeling of grief for them, and for all of us. By that time a Bible that was on the plane had been thrust into my hands.... Here was a man with the ability and determination for the task ahead. Great as are the responsibilities of office, I felt he could carry on. I told him so, and that we were behind him, and he would have our sympathy and our help. As I left the plane, I heard him give the order to take off, 'Now let's get ready and go.'"

10 of 10

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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