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64 years ago a President spoke in Chapel Hill. His speech was short - 17 minutes - and remarkable in its praise of science specifically & education in general. The History of Progressive thinking & action which North Carolina had become identified with, albeit an observation that was made in the tacit understanding that such recognition was of the state within its region, the American South, so sadly & so often, a regressive place-then, & perhaps now even more so. What is striking about this oratory is both the fine line that JFK walks between pointing to the positives of higher learning & the general cautiousness of centrist worldview to move too far too fast. Underlying the content is also a sense of the rumbling negativity of conservatism & even, with full 20-20 hindsight, the threat to the nation & Constitutional Democratic Republicanism of what today goes by the label of “modern conservatism” & GOP philosophy. There are links below for listening. Judge for yourself.
#OTD in 1961 John F. Kennedy spoke @KenanStadium for #UniversityDay at The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. The yearly celebration marks the 1793 laying of the cornerstone of the school's first building, Old East. 30,000 attended, many of whom were schoolchildren. The President evoked Goethe, asking the audience, overwhelmingly young & students, in the world into which they would soon emerge, one tense with Cold War rivalry & nuclear threat, would they be a hammer or an anvil? Anvil or Hammer: President John F. Kennedy at Kenan Stadium, 1961
Watch JFK Here: LISTEN to full speech here (17:02): https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKWHA/1961/JFKWHA-051-004/JFKWHA-051-004
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We lived off 54 in a neighborhood called Sherwood Forest. I thought Robin hood was nearby. I had just turned 4. I remember the excitement of the president coming but not much else.My mother took me to that. The thing I remember the most were the cool Limos and the fact that they closed of Highway 54 from RDU airport to CH. As I recall she let me skip school to go-I could be wrong it might have been a weekend ?
My mother took me to that. The thing I remember the most were the cool Limos and the fact that they closed of Highway 54 from RDU airport to CH. As I recall she let me skip school to go-I could be wrong it might have been a weekend ?
I don't remember that at my school ? Now I was 7...............I have always heard that there was a contest associated with the school kids going that involved the designing of county flags, i.e., school kids doing it and then parading on the field carrying them. Some counties in NC do actually have flags.
It was a Thursday. I was born that day.My mother took me to that. The thing I remember the most were the cool Limos and the fact that they closed of Highway 54 from RDU airport to CH. As I recall she let me skip school to go-I could be wrong it might have been a weekend ?
Happy belated Zoo !It was a Thursday. I was born that day.