Dallas was a much-changed city in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy visited in November.
Sixty years after the assassination, some Dallas leaders want to focus less on the tragic death and more on the message Kennedy wanted to share.
“We really need to focus on President Kennedy's life and his values,” said former state Rep. Helen Giddings.
In 1963, Dallas was not considered a Kennedy-friendly area, said Giddings, who lived in Dallas his entire life.
“It didn't have a very good reputation when it came to inclusivity. Dallas was known as a city of hate,” Giddings said.
Dallas Morning News reporter Michael Granberry said President Kennedy later met with the Secret Service's chief agent and was warned that thousands of open windows could not be protected during the visit. It is said that
“A lot of things happened before President Kennedy arrived,” Granberry said.
These included attacks on Adlai Stevenson II, President Kennedy's ambassador to the United Nations, and on demonstrators in Dallas denouncing future Vice President Mrs. Lyndon Johnson during a 1960 visit.
Mr. Granberry said Dallas department store sign Stanley Marcus warned Mr. Kennedy not to visit, but Mr. Kennedy ignored his warning.
“This town was overwhelmingly white and Protestant,” Granberry said.
Kennedy, the first Catholic president, had little support for his civil rights talk among his people.
“When I was growing up, my parents attended a Baptist church in Pleasant Grove, and I remember the fear that many of those people expressed about Kennedy was that he was Catholic.” Granberry said.
But Giddings said Kennedy's speech was an inspiration to her Dallas neighbors.
“African Americans had really high hopes for JFK and what he wanted to bring,” she said.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who was labeled as the sole assassin, had no connection to the Dallas group in the investigation following the president's death and Oswald's assassination by Jack Ruby.
But Giddings said Dallas is still despised across America because of what happened.
“All of us who lived here were held responsible for President Kennedy's death,” she said.
Granberry said the book he co-wrote about the Dallas Cowboys, “Hole in the Roof,'' includes a chapter about the assassination's impact on the football team.
“This hostility was something they had been dealing with for several years,” he said.
Some people in Dallas wanted to destroy the Texas School Book Depository building where the fatal shot was fired at Kennedy.
Instead, the Sixth Floor Museum opened there to address the tragedy and the city of Dallas.
The lower level of the building was used for many years as the Dallas County Courthouse.
All of the county commissioners serving Dallas are now Democrats, a change from the ultra-conservative politicians elected decades ago.
Dallas became a majority-minority city. African Americans, especially Latinos, now outnumber whites.
The current population of Dallas is approximately 1.3 million, approximately twice the population of 1963.
“Culturally it's much more diverse. People from every country in the world live here now. And politically it's changed dramatically as well,” Granberry said.
Mr. Giddings, who served in the Texas State Assembly for 26 years, is a successful businessman.
“I'm really proud of some of the progress we've made. I don't want to lose sight of the fact that we still have quite a ways to go,” Giddings said. “I want more people to have the same experience I had in Dallas.”
Giddings points to homelessness, hunger and economic disparity in south Dallas as issues that Kennedy would have fought to improve.
And Mr. Granberry, a longtime Dallas newspaper reporter, said he supports Giddings' call for renewed attention to Kennedy's values rather than his assassination.
“Why not spend the next 60 years focusing on his life,” he said.
