JFK’s Last Night Before the Assassination

This is some fantastic footage, showing President Kennedy and his wife Jackie Kennedy in Houston, Texas on November 21, 1963.  The film was shot by Roy Botello, a San Antonio native, at The Rice Hotel, shortly before 9pm, at a local gathering in honor local Hispanic leaders.  Several hundred people turned out in the name of League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).  The next day, the president would be murdered in Dallas.

This film is in 8mm and without any sound , but in it JFK spoke for a few moments and then introduced Jackie, who addressed the delighted crowd in Spanish. 

There is something about this footage that is particularly haunting.  Maybe it’s the fact that it is amateur footage and up so close.  We get a chance to see the Kennedy’s as real people, alive on the earth and breathing real air, and just merely as iconic figures in history.

How different would all of our lives had been?

President Kennedy and his Wife Jackie in Houston at the Rice Hotel, November 21, 1963.

JFK’s Last Night Before the Assassination