Anyone have a link to the story about kids in Dallas cheering on hearing the news that JFK was shot?

[redqueen]

I've seen this claim repeated here a few times, but so far no link.

I've tried to find it on my own, but all I find is sites that debunk the claim as bad reporting - stating that the kids were only told they would be let out of school early, and not that JFK had been shot.

Help please?

I'd really like to know the truth about this claim.

[liberalmuse]

1. I heard it from someone who was around during that time- found a snippet

I can't prove they are telling the truth, though. It could be an urban legend, but I'm glad you made me think that perhaps a little more research on this is in order.

On edit - found something:

27 November 1963, Modesto (CA) Bee, “Police Guard Minister Who Reviled ‘The CIty of Hate’,” pg. 1, cols. 5-7:
DALLAS, Tex.—AP—Police officers today stood guard outside the home of a minster who said in a televised interview some public school pupils cheered at word President John F. Kennedy had been shot Friday.

The Rev. William Holmes, pastor of the Northaven Methodist Church, made the statement last night on Walter Cronkite’s Columbia Broadcasting System news show.

[redqueen]

4. Thanks.

Maybe that's enough for some to consider it fair to repeat the claim.

[PATRICK]

6. That is the one debunked constantly

and the reason it stuck is that CBS stood by the minister's interpretation without fact checking. I think Dan Rather was the young reporter who passed on this reaction, something actually pretty typical from what I remember over the years. Events steamrolled over this minor story and any controversy to recant. Now, the debunkers might be full of it too as part of a get Dan Rather tradition but the school and its administrators still exist as a first source plus ALL the students at that school at least. Once THAT story of actual cheering broke looking for the usual teen scoffing and reflexive disrespect of anything would be easy. I could believe any version but the debunking sounds more accurate, that the children were only cheering getting out from school early without knowledge of why.

When you push a button it can't be easily unpushed. There are many spiteful urban legends out there from huge periods of history. Or you have incontrovertible that people don't even WANT to remember. Mark Twain trying to put some context or some understanding of the dread pictures of lynch mobs down South can be compared to the grinning guards of Abu Graib. Always be personally humble and ready to retract loyalty or indignation and save the dogma for principles, not widely accepted traditions.

[aquart]

9. Nobody in my school was cheering.

What a bizarre thing to bring up now.

[FARAFIELD]

2. False

I studied this thing up and down, and HAVE NEVER ONCE heard that story. Its an easy thing to make up though, who could refute it? they would just say "I cant remember the school"

[redqueen]

3. It looks like one guy said that it happened... and everyone just took his word for it.

What sticks in my craw is that the people here who post about it keep saying Dallas when it wasn't Dallas, it was a very wealthy suburb.

One would hope that more than one person's say-so would be needed before people would start repeating the claim... but oh well.

[ramblin_dave]

5. It did happen at my High School in Alabama

The principal made the announcement over the PA system. The classroom doors to the hallway were open and I heard the sound of clapping and cheering from some other classrooms. But no one did either in the classroom I was in. We were let out early and the principal invited a local minister to say a prayer before we were released.

Earlier that year we sat in a student assembly to hear a speaker from a youth group supported by Governor Wallace. He began his talk by making a comparison of president Kennedy to Hitler.

[redqueen]

7. Thanks.

Hard to imagine that people can be so hateful. :(

[PATRICK]

8. That is why

one should beware of blaming "those people" in Texas. We had must have had some Kennedy despisers in our private school(Northeast US). Obnoxious behavior of any sort got one a walloping- of which there were many instances normally but not that day. Mostly nationwide it was spontaneous majority somberness, shock and respect. Then the media circus got out front to preside in priestly fashion mainly over the funeral as the major news events of the story frittered away. To discuss the man and the conflicts or conspiracies(that existed whether they had a direct hand or not with the shooter(s))would be like talking in Church. They killed the man, slapped the country and puffed up the myths and never dug too hard for any important truth. Not many regional people then(or now) walk very many paces other regional shoes.

[Mabus]

10. Link to an actual Nov 28, 1963 article printed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19631128&id=VEgNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=YGwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6266,4365719

Starting four paragraphs into the article, the Dallas School officials deny it. They say some schools released the children but didn't tell them that the president had just been assassinated. As a result, the kids were cheering because they were going home early, not because JFK had been shot.