Peter Acsay, associate teaching professor of history at UMSL, lectures at the university in this file photo. He recently discussed his memories of the John F. Kennedy assassination with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. (Photo by August Jennewein)
The breaking news on Nov. 22, 1963, deeply disturbed all of the grownups around Peter Acsay, then an eight-year-old living in St. Louis’ Walnut Park neighborhood. That’s how Acsay, now an associate teaching professor of history at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, remembers the assassination of the 35th president of the United States.
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)
The historian told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that it’s the subsequent conspiracy theories that most fascinate his students, the majority of whom are grandchildren or great grandchildren to those who were alive when John F. Kennedy died.
“I see some puzzlement and confusion in their faces,” Acsay told the Post-Dispatch. “They don’t see Kennedy the way young people did back then, as a figure of promise. They see a dead president, and they are skeptical of the official explanations.”
Visit the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website to read the full article.
