Sixth Floor Museum Overtakes Grassy Knoll on 50th Anniversary
Thursday, November 10, 2011 7:13:59 PM
Message body
Friends,
Below is my comment posted on this article in Dallas Observer about the attempt by Dallas and the Sixth Floor Museum to usurp the Grassy Knoll and the message on November 22.1963.
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpa...jfk_si.php
This blog was written in response to David Flick's piece in the Dallas Morning News, "Dallas' JFK museum to oversee Dealey Plaza events for 50th anniversary of assassination"
http://www.dallasnews.com/ news/community-news/downtown- dallas/headlines/2011
The truth must be visible on the Grassy Knoll that year, there will be a huge crowd. Should we start an Occupy the Grassy Knoll movement? John Judge
Comment:
In 1964, researcher and newspaper editor Penn Jones, Jr. of Midlothian, TX began a tradition of holding a Moment of Silence on the Grassy Knoll at 12:30 pm every November 22. An early and lifelong critic of the Dallas police activities and investigation and the Warren Commission surrounding the Kennedy assassination, Penn wrote and spoke out about the lies, coverups and witness deaths in the case. I joined him and a handful of others on the Grassy Knoll each year, starting in the late 60s, and when he became to ill to participate after the 30th anniversary, he asked me to continue the ceremony on behalf of those seeking the truth about who killed JFK.
I have held a Moment of Silence every year since then, and as an activity of the Coalition on Political Assassinations since 1994, with a permit from Dallas Parks and Recreation. The event became part of our annual conferences on the assassinations every year in Dallas, which still continue. There is no way to be completely silent in the face of the unsolved murders of a president, his brother, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X and others, but we solemnify the moment and then speak truth to power at the assassination site annually.
I have been asking for a permit for the 50th anniversary for the last three years to no avail, only to be informed that one will not be available to us in 2013. Our permits were always non-exclusive and other individuals and groups without one have often drowned us out with amplified sound or distracted people with some form of performance art as the crowds grew following the release of Oliver Stone's film JFK twenty years ago.
Some 5,000 people came out for the 40th anniversary and there will likely be more on the 50th. To try to limit the message to all of them that day and deny the critics free speech is absurd and doubtless unconstitutional. I was told by Dallas police that the disruptive actions of others during our permitted event was "free speech". Where is ours in 2013? To disallow us there have been repeated claims in the Dallas press that we are disrespectful of the Kennedy family and legacy to even question the official history or suggest a conspiracy in his murder. We were even called a "morbid, necrophilic circus" one year by a reporter for the Dallas Morning News. If we are a circus, then the Dallas press are the clowns, for failing to do their investigative duty over the years in the crime of the last century. But speaking out in our own voices and making the world remember Kennedy's life and his death and its historical meaning is not a carnival, it is a democratic tradition that needs to be protected not stifled.
Ironically, a Sixth Floor Museum representative was quoted saying they did not know what they would do on the anniversary to be respectful, "maybe a moment of silence." What a novel idea! Despite such public relations operations on behalf of Dallas and the Sixth Floor Museum to blame Lee Harvey Oswald as a lone nut and exonerate the city of blame, the truth will out.
John Judge, director, Coalition on Political Assassinations,
www.politicalassassinations.com
-- John JudgeCoalition on Political Assassinations (COPA)PO Box 772Washington, DC 20044
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