I’m sitting within the again seat of a midnight blue Lincoln Continental convertible that appears nearly equivalent to the one which carried John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Two U.S. flags on the hood flutter within the wind as we cruise via downtown Dallas. This meticulously restored 1963 mannequin even options blankets emblazoned with the presidential seal. As we flip left onto Elm Road from Houston Road, my information, Robin Brown, slows to 14 miles per hour, near the velocity Kennedy’s motorcade traveled alongside this route.
Greater than sixty years have handed because the assassination, however I nonetheless discover myself holding my breath as we roll over the primary hand-painted X on the pavement marking the place the preliminary shot struck. By the second X, I’m feeling surprisingly tense. Brown locks eyes with me within the rearview mirror as we speed up below the triple underpass on the fringe of Dealey Plaza.
“Once you’re in this,” he says with a smile, “there’s no turning back.”
Dallas provides some ways to study in regards to the JFK assassination: Segway excursions; hop-on, hop-off trolleys; golf-cart-like electrical Cruizer automobiles; and the JFK Meals and Tradition strolling tour. About 350,000 guests come to the Sixth Flooring Museum, within the former Texas Faculty E book Depository, every year. The sustained fascination with what occurred that day has been fed by conspiracy books, Broadway musicals, and TikTok movies. A 2023 Gallup ballot discovered that 65 % of People imagine that Lee Harvey Oswald couldn’t have acted alone when he shot Kennedy and wounded Texas Governor John Connally, a 4 % improve from a decade earlier.
Emily Williams, the advertising and marketing supervisor on the Sixth Flooring Museum, says many millennials like her—and me— are simply as as their dad and mom: “About sixty percent of visitors to the museum were born after 1963.” She grew up listening to tales from her household; her great-grandfather, Marvin Johnson, was a Dallas police detective who was on the scene that day.
What fuels this enduring obsession? Is it a deep-seated distrust of the federal government, society’s love of conspiracy theories, or the query of how our world would look as we speak had Kennedy survived?
In keeping with Robin Brown, the reply is all the above. By his firm, JFK Customized Excursions, he provides 5 excursions of various lengths. About half his shoppers spring for the longest and most costly choice: the Presidential Tour, a $100-an-hour, all-day odyssey. You’ll be able to select from numerous add-ons, together with “Retrace the motorcade’s frantic rush to Parkland Hospital” and “Visit the graves of JFK witnesses.”
Robin and Kendal.{Photograph} by Wynn Myers
Brown, now seventy years previous, began his enterprise in 2014 on the urging of his daughter Kendal, who created his web site and handles his bookings. “She saved my marriage,” he says, chuckling. “The tour puts me in front of people who want to listen to me. My wife is very happy I’m with you right now and not her.” By day, Brown runs the Geo J. Carroll & Son Funeral House, in Gainesville, about seventy miles north of Dallas. He now delegates a lot of his each day duties to his son and different staff in order that he can provide extra excursions. Brown is a sought-after useful resource on the Kennedy assassination who has been featured in Netflix’s Darkish Vacationer sequence and Brad Metzler’s e book, The ten Biggest Conspiracies of All Time.
I figured an $800, eight-hour solo tour would at the very least present me with some new angles on the topic—at a time when an increasing number of folks query the federal government’s account of the assassination.
The night time I arrived in Dallas from Austin, I researched the typical time dedication for visiting Dealey Plaza: ten minutes. I puzzled how Brown might fill eight hours on an occasion that occurred greater than sixty years in the past. The following morning, I’d discover out.
9 a.m. Dealey Plaza
I meet Brown on the well-known grassy knoll throughout the plaza. It’s already 92 levels, but he’s sporting a crisp navy blue go well with; a U.S. flag is pinned to his lapel. His opening line: “I will not say ‘we suspect’ during this tour. I know what happened.”
All of a sudden he leaps into oncoming site visitors to face on the crudely painted X marking the primary shot. Each few years, the Metropolis of Dallas paves over the 2 X’s, however it by no means takes lengthy for somebody to color them again. Drivers honk at Brown to maneuver out of the best way, however he doesn’t budge. He gestures for me to hitch him and factors on the notorious e book depository’s sixth-floor window, which is obstructed by leaves. He tells me he disagrees with the federal government’s rivalry that, as a result of the bushes had been naked that day, Oswald had a transparent shot from the window. “Texas live oak trees shed their leaves in the spring, not the winter.” He throws his arms on his cheeks for emphasis. “Think about it!” (Others say the bushes had been a number of toes shorter sixty years in the past, giving Oswald a transparent shot no matter any foliage.)
Brown was simply 9 years previous in November 1963, and by nineteen he had immersed himself in researching the case. Over the previous fifty years, he has investigated each facet, he says. We spend nearly three hours going over the trivia of that day. I stand on the concrete pedestal the place clothes producer Abraham Zapruder filmed the assassination along with his 8-millimeter digital camera. (A number of months after my tour, newly found footage by one other Dallas businessman of the moments proper after the photographs offered for practically $138,000 at public sale.)
Because it nears midday, we head towards Brown’s Continental, parked by the Sixth Flooring Museum, which wasn’t included within the tour. A swarm of holiday makers are taking selfies with the automotive. “I have to wait in line to get in my car,” he tells me. “I enjoy that.”
Dealey Plaza. {Photograph} by Wynn Myers The Sixth Flooring Museum at Dealey Plaza. {Photograph} by Wynn Myers 1 p.m. Oak Cliff
We eat lunch at Oddfellows, a preferred spot within the Bishop Arts neighborhood. I anticipate a respite from the tour and the prospect to ask Brown about his life exterior of JFK. However I ought to have recognized higher.
He instantly delves into the main points of the Zapruder movie, claiming to have watched it seven thousand occasions. When his sandwich arrives, he unfolds his serviette and holds it as much as his face. “I hate talking with my mouth full,” he explains as he speaks frantically in regards to the movie from behind his paper defend.
2 p.m. 1026 North Beckley Avenue
We return to the automotive. Brown tosses his rumpled jacket on the seat subsequent to him and chugs water from an enormous Chick-fil-A cup. Giving this tour is an act of endurance. An additional go well with hangs neatly within the again. We pull as much as the modest boarding home the place Oswald rented a room on the time of the assassination.
It’s now the Oswald Rooming Home Museum, run by Patricia Corridor, the granddaughter of the girl who owned the house in 1963. His tour doesn’t embody a go to inside. “There’s still too much more to see,” he explains.
3 p.m. Tenth and Patton streets
Brown takes us to the nook the place Oswald shot and killed 39-year-old Dallas patrolman J. D. Tippit lower than an hour after Kennedy was gunned down. As we drive, he references a favourite e book of his, conspiracy theorist James W. Douglass’s 544-page tome, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Issues.
We step out of the automotive, passing a bunch of younger tennis gamers on highschool courts, and think about the Texas Historic Fee plaque honoring the fallen officer.
Brown’s cellphone rings, and he solutions. I overhear his spouse asking the place he’s: “I’m at the Tippit murder scene.” I believe I hear her sigh loudly earlier than Brown hangs up. When the decision ends, he picks up the place he left off, discussing witness testimonies.
4 p.m. Texas Theatre
Subsequent we head to the 1931 film home the place police apprehended Oswald, who had slipped in throughout a matinee exhibiting of Conflict Is Hell. The doorway is roped off for a non-public occasion, however Brown fees via: “We’re getting in there,” he assures me with a wink.
A supervisor asks why we’re there. I clarify that I’m on a JFK tour. He closes his eyes—this has occurred earlier than, I collect. Brown velocity walks proper into the theater. As we’re corralled out, Brown calls my consideration to the chair Oswald sat in that day: “Three rows from the back, five seats from the aisle.”
After my tour, I’ll speak to Vianca Vega, who runs the theater’s field workplace. “Every day, as soon as we open our doors, at least one person rushes in to see Oswald’s chair. If we’re not screening a movie, I let them explore for a few minutes. Sometimes, they’ll buy a T-shirt or popcorn, which is good business.”
A map of the Kennedy motorcade’s path. {Photograph} by Wynn Myers The convertible. {Photograph} by Wynn Myers 5 p.m. Outdated Metropolis Corridor
Our last cease is exterior the beaux arts–fashion constructing that in 1963 housed Dallas Police Headquarters, the place Jack Ruby shot Oswald two days after JFK’s assassination.
The tour involves an in depth as we descend the limestone steps. I really feel a wierd mixture of pleasure, frustration, curiosity, andmelancholy. Immediately I’ve been thrown out of a movie show, bombarded with information in regards to the physics of flying bullets, and practically flattened by a semitruck on Elm Road. I’ve lined greater than 25 miles, made ten stops, and absorbed numerous information.
I won’t perceive the whole lot that occurred in November 1963, however, after the tour, I now perceive why so many individuals—from the vacationers who stroll via Dealey Plaza daily to a charismatic funeral director with a morbid facet hustle—nonetheless care a lot.
This text initially appeared within the November 2024 situation of Texas Month-to-month with the title “My Day as a Conspiracy Tourist.” Subscribe as we speak.
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