Woman in headscarf in President Kennedy's ill-fated Dallas motorcade video identified 62 years later
The identity of the woman in a headscarf watching President John F. Kennedy's ill-fated motorcade through Dallas remained unknown for 62 years. She's now 94 years old and lives at the CC Young Independent Living Facility in Dallas.
The day was Nov. 22, 1963. A motorcade with President Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy made its way through Dealey Plaza.
Joan Jackson watched the President go by.
"It just went on and on for a while," Jackson said. "It was just a different time back then."
It was a different time with different rules. Several newspapers published the President's route days in advance.
"They announced that the sun was coming out and that they were going to take the bubble off of the car," Jackson said.
Jackson's friend took a picture of the motorcade passing by them.
"It was just such a beautiful setting for me to see them go by," Jackson said. "I know we kept saying to each other, 'I can't believe this.'"
No one knew Jackson's name or story for decades. That changed when Stephen Fagin, the head of curatorial at the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, got a call.
"Her daughter happened to call me at the museum and say, 'My mom saw the parade. She's in a film. She's wearing a headscarf," Fagin said.
"I didn't even know anyone was filming it," Jackson said. "It's like I'm looking right at the camera."
Jackson held her friend's three-year-old son in the video and never knew how famous she'd become.
"I got so excited because Joan Jackson, as we now know her, is the most visible motorcade spectator outside of the eyewitnesses to the assassination in Dealey Plaza," Fagin said.
The Sixth Floor Museum chronicles the assassination and legacy of President Kennedy. Fagin interviewed Jackson for the museum's oral history project.
"They're like puzzle pieces that fit into this broader tapestry of living memory, and they help to connect us to the moment and the memory of that event and make this story relevant to younger people born decades after the 1960s," Fagin said.
Jackson's memories of what happened in downtown Dallas more than six decades ago remain vivid, and now, they're in living color for future generations to learn from.
"It provides this tangible link to the moment, and the memory of the assassination, and to preserve that makes this event real and relevant today," Fagin said.
"The older ones, we won't be around much longer, and I think the young ones need to know what happened," Jackson said
The 94-year-old's memory of that day remains sharp.
"We drove down Oaklawn to Fairmont," Jackson said.
The images are still fresh.
"It was such a shock," Jackson said.
Her recollections are now preserved for the world to see on the museum's YouTube page, and yes, she still has the headscarf, which will be on display.
