The Day that the President died.
Forty seven years ago, November 22, 1963.  I am writing this is on November 22, 2010. Next month I will be 70 years old.

The assassination changed the country.  Individuals who were younger, or older,  remember that event as it was yesterday. Everyone remembered exactly were they were and what they were doing when that horrific and tragic moment happened.

I was waiting to meet the Tennessee Parole Board. I had been sentenced to one to three years on a chain gang for assault on a police officer. This happened  during a civil rights demonstration.  The police with clubs as weapons started beating the demonstrators during a set-in near Memphis State University.  I was being beaten when I tried to defend myself . I punched one of  the police men who was attacking me. All this was recorded by the CBS affiliate TV station and broadcast  that evening on the CBS news with Walter Cronkite.

I was arrested and later beaten by a number men who took turn to "teach the northern nigger his place."   I remember that after a several hours of non-stop physical punishment, one young crew-cut officer pull out his revolver and said "let's kill the nigger". They could have and at that point in time, I was so beat up and numb that I didn't care.  I didn't plea for my life .  I was very young and the thought of  someone putting a bullet in my brain  didn't scare me at the time.

I was convicted and  incarcerated at the Shelby County Penal Farm in Memphis, TN. I was a colored northern man from Boston, MA., in the deep south  that was racially segregated and very prejudiced.
After nine months working on the chain gang, I was scheduled to meet with the parole board. The day of my hearing,  the parole board recessed from the morning review and were going to lunch before it was my turn to meet with them.

I was waiting for the board to return, when a loud roar of jubilant erupted throughout facility from prison guards, staff and many of the white inmates.

I was wondering why this was happening. People were yelling and cheering and saying " I glad the "nigger lover is dead".

Someone had turned on the television in offices near where I was waiting. I saw Walter Cronkite reporting that John F. Kennedy had been shot and died in a Dallas hospital.

Here I was, a colored young man from Boston, MA, and I was the only one in that prison that had any sorrow or grief for the murder of the President.

Southerns hated JFK because of his beliefs in the civil and equal rights for colored Americans, and the majority of southern white people that hated JFK  were happy that someone had killed him.

I will never forget those reactions from the people who were glad.
That was November 22, 47 years ago. The day that I was paroled.

Charles Wesley Ford
November 22, 2010,