Bumper Sticker from the 1960 Democratic campaign. Source: Gary Mormino Collection Book about Presidential humor, published in 1962. Source: Gary Mormino Collection Lyndon Baines Johnson campaign pins, 1964 election. Source: Gary Mormino Collection Robert “Bobby” Kennedy campaign pin, 1968 election. Source: Gary Mormino Collection Robert “Bobby” Kennedy campaign poster, 1968 election. Source: Gary Mormino Collection President Kennedy’s visit to Florida, 1963. Source: Hazel T. Evans Collection An Official Portrait of President John F. Kennedy. Source: Hazel T. Evans Collection Letter of appreciation sent by Jackie Kennedy from the White House, October 1961. Source: Sudsy Tschiderer Collection Photo history of the Kennedy Assassination, published shortly after the event. Source: Sudsy Tschiderer Collection Clippings describing JFK’s inaugural address on January 20, 1961. Source: Sudsy Tschiderer Collection The 1960 Presidential Debates were among the first national debates televised. John F. Kennedy, the Democratic candidate, appears on the left, and Richard M. Nixon, the sitting Vice President at the time, is on the right. Clippings about the Presidential debates during the 1960 election. Source: Sudsy Tschiderer Collection Front page of the St. Petersburg Times announcing decision to honor JFK. Source: Sudsy Tschiderer Collection Shortly after Kennedy’s assassination, nations throughout the world honored his legacy on stamps, as shown in this booklet for collectors from the mid‐1960s. Source: Sudsy Tschiderer Collection Early during his Presidency, in 1962, Kennedy talked about the need for the United States to mobilize its resources and develop a plan to get to the moon before the end of that decade. He said: “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills; because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.” The American spaceship Apollo 11 reached the moon on July 20, 1969, before the end of the decade. “Man on the Moon” commemorative vinyl record, narrated by Walter Cronkite, a popular television anchor for CBS News. Source: Sudsy Tschiderer Collection Soviet commemorative item celebrating Russian spaceflight before the US reached the moon. The launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite by the Soviet Union in October 1957 caught President Dwight Eisenhower and the United States by surprise and marked the beginnings of the race for outer space. Source: Sudsy Tschiderer Collection Kennedy campaign pin, 1960. Source: Sudsy Tschiderer Collection A lighter commemorating a meeting between JFK and Adolfo López Mateos, the President of Mexico (1958‐1964). Source: Sudsy Tschiderer Collection Written by Herb Kretzmer and David Lee, “In the Summer of His Years” was a song written in tribute to John F. Kennedy shortly after his assassination. Recorded in December 1963, it sparked some debate by those who claimed that it capitalized on the nation’s tragedy. Connie Francis sang the song. The lyrics are as follows: A young man rode with his head held high Under the Texas sun And no one guessed that a man so blessed Would perish by the gun A shot rang out like a sudden shout And Heaven held its breath For the dreams of a multitude of man Rode with him to his death Lord, rode with him to his death Yes, the heart of the world weighs heavy With the helplessness of tears For the man cut down in a Texas town In the summer of his years The summer of his years And we who say mustn’t ever lose The victories that he won For whatever man look to freedom … His soul goes riding on Lord, his soul goes riding on Source: Sudsy Tschiderer Collection Assassinations reshape our national conscience. After the tragic assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and JFK’s younger brother, Robert Kennedy, in 1968, the musician Dion recorded a powerful song written by Dick Holler. Entitled “Abraham, Martin and John,” the song paid tribute to four men (Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy) who were struck down too young in life. Source: Sudsy Tschiderer Collection Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy in Washington, D.C., on June 22, 1963. Less than five years later, they would again be joined by fate, as both were assassinated in 1968. Dr. King was shot in Memphis on April 4, and Robert Kennedy perished after speaking at an event in Los Angeles, as an assassin shot him. RFK died on June 6. Robert Kennedy Assassination, June 5, 1968 Arrest photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald Shooting of Oswald by Jack Ruby on November 24, 1963 After Kennedy’s assassination, many questions remained. Some have never been fully answered to this day. Did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone? Was there a larger conspiracy? Was Cuban dictator Fidel Castro involved? Were members of organized crime gangs, including a Tampa mobster named Santo Trafficante, involved? On November 29, one week after the assassination, President Lyndon B. Johnson created the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy under the leadership of Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Warren and others had strong reservations about creating such a commission so soon after the event, fearing that this body—often known as the Warren Commission—would have to compromise its findings in a way that left everyone dissatisfied. The report issued in September 1964 claimed that Oswald had acted alone, angering many conspiracy theorists and leaving others unhappy because much of the evidence was problematic at best. Here is a copy of the report, a government document that remains mired in controversy more than forty‐nine years later. This poster celebrated the campaign of Robert Kennedy, JFK’s younger brother and the former Attorney General. In June 1968, while campaigning in Los Angeles, Bobby was assassinated. One of many books that came out in the years following JFK’s assassination that described what some would call the “Age of Camelot” or “Camelot Era.” Source: Sudsy Tschiderer Collection Various newspapers from Florida, including the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times) and the Evening Independent, an afternoon paper once published in St. Peters‐ burg. Source: Sudsy Tschiderer Collection A comic book account of John Kennedy’s life published shortly after his death. Source: Sudsy Tschiderer Collection Color reproductions from various magazines of the time. Source: Sudsy Tschiderer Collection Did you know that the Poynter Library has one of the largest collections of newspapers related to the assassination of President Kennedy? In December 1993, Hugh Cunningham, a professor of journalism at the University of Florida, donated his collection of 418 single issues of newspapers from throughout the United States to our library. This collection has papers from 45 different states that include “special editions” from Friday, November 22, 1963, as well as papers that continued to follow the assassination events through Monday, November 25. A guide is available at: http://dspace.nelson.usf.edu/xmlui/handle/10806/1632 Kennedy Assassination Newspaper Collection, Special Collections and University Archives, Poynter Library