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50 Years Ago: The World in 1963 in 50 Photos of Our Lives (Dial-Up Warning)
50 Years Ago: The World in 1963Feb 15, 2013
A half century ago, much of the news in the United States was dominated by the actions of civil rights activists and those who opposed them. Our role in Vietnam was steadily growing, along with the costs of that involvement. It was the year Beatlemania began, and the year President John F. Kennedy visited West Berlin and delivered his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech. Push-button telephones were introduced, 1st class postage cost 5 cents, and the population of the world was 3.2 billion, less than half of what it is today. The final months of 1963 were punctuated by one of the most tragic events in American history, the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. Let me take you 50 years into the past now, for a look at the world as it was in 1963.
I still weep seeing these scenes, but left out those farther from my attention that year. They are etched in my heart and my mind, and will always be a large part of who I am.
Civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. waves to supporters on the Mall in Washington, D.C. during the "March on Washington," on August 28, 1963. King said the march was "the greatest demonstration of freedom in the history of the United States." (AFP/AFP/Getty Images)
President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy ride in a parade in Washington, D.C., on March 27, 1963. (National Archive/Newsmakers)
Black college student Dorothy Bell, 19, of Birmingham, Alabama, waits at a downtown Birmingham lunch counter for service that never came, April 4, 1963. She was later arrested with 20 others in sit-in attempts. (AP Photo)
Rev. Ralph Abernathy, left, and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., are removed by a policeman as they led a line of demonstrators into the business section of Birmingham, Alabama, on April 12, 1963. (AP Photo)
A 17-year-old civil rights demonstrator, defying an anti-parade ordinance in Birmingham, Alabama, is attacked by a police dog on May 3, 1963. On the afternoon of May 4, 1963, during a meeting at the White House with members of a political group, President Kennedy discussed this photo, which had appeared on the front page of that day's New York Times. (AP Photo/Bill Hudson)
A cheering crowd, estimated by police at more than a quarter of a million, fills the area beneath the podium at West Berlin's City Hall, where U.S. President John F. Kennedy stands. His address to the City Hall crowd was one of the highlights of his career. (AP Photo)
A picketer in front of a Gadsden, Alabama, drugstore turns to answer a heckler during a demonstration, on June 10, 1963. About two dozen black youths picketed several stores and two theaters. There were no arrests and no violence. (AP Photo)
Attorney General Robert Kennedy uses a bullhorn to address black demonstrators at the Justice Department, on June 14, 1963. The demonstrators marched to the White House, then to the District Building, and wound up at the Justice Department. (AP Photo/stf)
Alabama's governor George Wallace (left) faces General Henry Graham, in Tuscaloosa, at the University of Alabama, on June 12, 1963. Wallace blocked the enrollment of two African-American students, Vivian Malone and James Hood. Despite an order of the federal court, Governor George Wallace appointed himself the temporary University registrar and stood in the doorway of the administration building to prevent the students from registering. In response, President Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard. One hundred guardsman escorted the students to campus and their commander, General Henry Graham, ordered George Wallace to "step aside." Thus were the students registered. Kennedy addressed the public in a June 11 speech that cleared his position on civil rights. The bill that he submitted to Congress was ultimately passed as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (OFF/AFP/Getty Images)
Mourners file past the open casket of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, on June 15, 1963. On June 12, Evers was shot and killed outside his home by by Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the White Citizens' Council. (AP Photo/stf)
Firefighters turn their hoses full force on civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama, on July 15, 1963. (AP Photo/Bill Hudson)
The statue of Abraham Lincoln is illuminated during a civil rights rally, on August 28, 1963 in Washington, D.C. (National Archive/Newsmakers)
Folk singers Joan Baez and Bob Dylan perform during a civil rights rally on August 28, 1963 in Washington D.C. (Rowland Scherman/National Archive/Newsmakers)
A civil defense worker and firemen walk through debris from an explosion which struck the 16th street Baptist Church, killing four girls and injuring 22 others, in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 15, 1963. The open doorway at right is where the girls are believed to have died. The horrific attack rallied public support to the cause of civil rights. Four men, members a Ku Klux Klan group, were responsible for planting a box of dynamite under the steps of the church. Three of the four were eventually tried and convicted. (AP Photo)
President John F. Kennedy greets a crowd at a political rally in Fort Worth, Texas in this November 22, 1963 photo by White House photographer Cecil Stoughton. (Reuters/JFK Library/The White House/Cecil Stoughton)
Flanked by Jacqueline Kennedy (right) and his wife Lady Bird Johnson (2nd left), U.S Vice President Lyndon Johnson is administered the oath of office by Federal Judge Sarah Hughes, as he assumed the presidency of the United States, on November 22, 1963, following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas (Cecil Stoughton/AFP/Getty Images)
Three-year-old John F. Kennedy Jr. salutes his father's casket in Washington in this November 25, 1963 photo, three days after the president was assassinated in Dallas. Widow Jacqueline Kennedy, center, and daughter Caroline Kennedy are accompanied by the late president's brothers Senator Edward Kennedy, left, and Attorney General Robert Kennedy. (AP Photo)
The rest of the photos are at the link below. Some are of the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement in the northern states, and other social events. I left a few out as they were so painful. More happened in the years that followed. But these are first in my mind.
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/02/50-years-ago-the-world-in-1963/100460/
11 replies
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My parents were very liberal. I knew what segregation meant, I was aware of the hate and discrimination. The injustice.
When I was in high school, I kept a journal of poetry that I wrote, about Black and White coming together as one. White hand meeting Black hand in unity and grief. Oh, I am not saying that it was good poetry, however it was how I felt. I still have it.
Thank you freshwest! 
Just before I sent this I went back to your original Thread, saw your answer to Warpy, and no you were not wrong to post this here! This is what our President is doing for this country. He is uniting us all!
Bless you, freshwest.
notwithstanding the ugliness of soul that raises its ugly head daily in 21st-century America as our government is being obstructed from promoting the general welfare by the domestic right-wing extremist group elected to the Congress. 
freshwest. 
Here is our VP Biden today..
@VP: VP and @repjohnlewis join in the annual crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama
http://theobamadiary.com/