An Associated Press story over the weekend recounted Dallas’ long struggle with how to handle its legacy as the place where John F. Kennedy was assassinated. After recounting the not-exactly-warm welcome that greeted the president on his visit here (starring the same cast of characters Tim mentioned last week), most of the article focuses on the debate over what to do with the Texas School Depository Building, which of course eventually came to house the Sixth Floor Museum.
It was clear there was a battle over the meaning of this place, [associate museum curator Stephen] Fagin said, between visitors from outside “wanting somewhere to go to experience the history of the event … versus the people of Dallas who were so frightened of this building becoming a shrine to Oswald or a further embarrassment to the city.”
The sixth floor finally opened to the public in 1989. Even then, however, it was simply called an exhibit.
“To have a full-fledged museum was too much to take at that time,” [former Dallas County Historical Commission chairwoman Lindalyn] Adams said, though it’s long since been accredited as a museum and expects to get 350,000 visitors this year.
Friends now tell her: “‘Everyone who visits Dallas I take there. And I thought you were crazy. Thank you for doing it.“’
Of course, this process took time, said Edward T. Linenthal, a history professor at Indiana University and editor of the Journal of American History.
“If you have any kind of imagination, it’s a wormhole,” he said. “It’s a place of great sadness but you’re standing at a place where the world changed.”
