Middle Georgia Remembers President John F. Kennedy on 50th Anniversary of His Assassination

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – It was the shot that rang around the world 50 years ago,

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding in his motorcade in Dallas, Texas.

The president’s death left the nation in shock and disbelief.

Middle Georgia residents visiting the Macon- Bibb County Senior Center, Friday, say they remember exactly what they were doing when they heard JFK was dead.

Some say they remember seeing it on television or hearing about it on the radio.

Others say they found out about the assassination through word of mouth.

Elase Benton says she was at home in her driveway going to the mailbox when she found out Kennedy had been fatally shot.

“It came on television,” said Benton. “When this came on naturally everybody hit the ceiling and that’s what was going on they met me out in the road and we were crying. Something bad had just happened to us.”

President Kennedy died at approximately one o’clock of a single gun shot wound in the brain.

Clarence Williams Jr., said JFK was one of his favorite presidents. Williams said it was Kennedy’s support of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which impressed him the most.

He said he was in college at the time of President Kennedy’s death and recalled watching most of the football team crying when they learned of the news.

“I was a student at Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia,” said Williams. “I was in the dormitory and we were watching television of course we were not watching the news and someone ran into the dormitory and said turn the TV on, turn the TV on, the president has been shot and the news came on and it announced the president had been killed by an assassin.”

Sela Pearson says she was a Brooklyn, New York grade student when she found out Kennedy was dead.

“I was in the sixth grade and we were in the classroom and the teacher had a call come through and told us we had to take a moment of silence because the president had been shot.”

Pearson called President John Kennedy an “over-comer”, because he was able to win the presidential election despite being Catholic.

“Everybody was saying because he was a Catholic he would not win. But, he stood for the people who did not have anything and it wasn’t so much about the people who had, but it was for those who did not have,” said Pearson.

Mary L. Sanders was working in Macon when she learned of the news. She says everything came to a halt when people found out, Kennedy was dead.

“I was at work on Vineville Avenue at Jim’s Cleaners,” said Sanders. “We were all working fine and feeling good and when we heard it, we heard it over the radio and we were so astonished by it until we just froze. We just didn’t know what to say or do.”