Nearly half a century later, the date remains difficult for many to forget: Nov. 22, 1963, the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. In grainy photographs and countless conspiracy theories, the day endures in our collective memory. What often gets submerged in these images and reports, though, is the story of the place that hosted Kennedy on that day, the city that saw his death firsthand: Dallas.
Here's where Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis step in. In a new history, Dallas 1963, they explore the city in the years leading up to the assassination â?? and they describe an angry place, a stew of superpatriotism fueled by anti-Communist paranoia, fierce racism and anti-Semitism.
Minutaglio speaks with NPR's Melissa Block about the "civic hysteria" that kept Dallas churning until Kennedy's death and the infamy that continues to dog it decades later.
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