JFK assassination Dallas marks its darkest day with sober ceremony

In this sombre Texas city there was silence where 50 years ago there was gunfire. Instead of screams bells pealed across Dealey Plaza. And there was order and reflection in place of chaos and panic.

The sky was grey but this was Dallas s moment of clarity a day when a demonised city faced its past in front of the world hoping that by paying tribute to John F Kennedy s life it will no longer be defined by his death.

Sleeked by drizzle and shivering in the cold thousands gathered outside the Texas school book depository from whose sixth floor 50 years earlier Lee Harvey Oswald fired the three shots that killed the 35th president of the United States.

At 12.30pm the time when Kennedy was struck as his motorcade passed along Elm Street a short period of quiet was observed broken by the ringing of bells followed by a rendition of of America the Beautiful by the US naval academy men s glee club.

The half hour ceremony called The 50th was Dallas s first major public commemoration of the killing. It featured prayers hymns and speeches and was a tribute to Kennedy s life rather than a reprise of his murder. Later in the evening a candlelit vigil was held at the location where a police officer JD Tippit was fatally shot by Oswald.

At a location that resonates so vividly of death even half a century later and even for people who were not born or have ever visited the US little needed to be said 22 November 1963.

The ceremony addressed the consequences not the conspiracies. The mayor of Dallas Mike Rawlings told the crowd that the US had been forced to grow up on the day Kennedy died. He called the murdered president an idealist without illusions who helped build a more just and equal world .

A moment's pause for Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings. Photograph LM Otero/AP

Rawlings unveiled a monument on the grassy knoll that is inscribed with the last words of a speech that Kennedy never got to deliver to local businesspeople at the Dallas Trade Mart

We in this country in this generation are by destiny rather than choice the watchmen on the walls of world freedom.

We ask therefore that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of 'peace on earth good will toward men.'

That must always be our goal and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength.

For as was written long ago except the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh but in vain .

Access to Dealey Plaza was tightly controlled 5 000 tickets distributed through a lottery and Dallas police conducted background checks on the winners and restricted access in and around the plaza. The weather forced the cancellation of a performance from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and an air force flypast though the conditions suited the subdued tone of the occasion.

The stage was backed with a large banner showing Kennedy s profile. A big screen played archive footage of Kennedy s career and a giant image of him hung at the eastern end of the plaza. The US and Texas flags flew at half mast.

Earlier in the day at Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington where President Obama paid his own tribute earlier this week attorney general Eric Holder paid his respects at Kennedy s recently refurbished grave. A British cavalry officer stood guard bagpipes played and a flame burned steadily as it has for the last half century. About an hour later Jean Kennedy Smith 85 the last surviving Kennedy sibling laid a wreath at her brother s grave joined by about 10 members of the Kennedy family.

In Dallas onlookers began assembling hours ahead of the start of the ceremony. Mark Monse 59 said he had come to the site of the assassination just to see where it took place I think this ceremony is appropriate far more so than the cottage industry that has developed with 500 books in 50 years and all the conspiracy theorists.

A Dallas police honor guard. Photograph Zuma/Rex Features

Emil Gosselin had travelled from Vermont to show my support for the president . The 61 year old remembers being at school when the janitor walked in and told him what had happened. It was like the world stopped he said.

Brad Glazier 60 came from Delaware to attend the ceremony and a conference held by a group of Coalition on Political Assassinations they prefer to be called assassination researchers rather than conspiracy theorists. Glazier was watching a puppet show in elementary school when the principal broke the news. He wore a yellow T shirt with the conference s logo a coin with an image of Kennedy s bleeding head and a slogan calling for more archive material to be released 50 years in denial is enough. Free the files. Find the truth .

While Dallas has grown dramatically over the past 50 years Dealey Plaza has changed little. It is part traffic artery part historical relic part morbid circus. Only about 300 yards away from the stretch of grass at its centre stands the building from where Oswald took aim the president s motorcade according to the Warren Commission though on any typical day people hawking books pamphlets and DVDs on the grassy knoll are keen to tell you otherwise. Threatened with demolition in the 1970s the depository is now a museum dedicated to the assassination.

Unable to conduct their own ceremonies on the plaza as they have done annually since the murder groups of conspiracy theorists met nearby. One group of about 50 people marched through through the crowd on Main Street chanting no more lies . But the ceremony passed off without incident.

A vintage plate with JFK's inaugural address. Photograph Damian Dovarganes/AP

About 90 minutes after the ballot winners dignitaries and news cameras had left Dealey Plaza a few protestors marched through but the place seemed to be returning to normal. Hucksters and hustlers were back telling anyone who cared to listen the truth about what really happened and why.

And by Monday the barriers scaffolding and journalists will have departed leaving a few tourists a lot of commuters and a city getting on with going forward.

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