SEPT/OCT 2014
50 YEARS AGO:
Warren Commission report
delivered to president; King
awarded Nobel Peace Prize
by Tanya J. Tyler,
Editor
After President
John F. Kennedy
was killed on Nov.
22, 1963, his successor, Lyndon B.
Johnson, created a commission to
glean out the facts behind the assassination. The seven-man commission was named after its reluctant chair, Supreme Court Chief
Justice Earl Warren. In its 888page report, delivered to Johnson
on Sept. 24, 1964, the commission
concluded Lee Harvey Oswald
had acted alone in the shooting,
but never gave an explanation
for why he did it. The report did
not put to rest the questions and
speculations about the assassination that continue to this day.
Some say Warren suppressed key
evidence, such as not allowing the
other members of the commission
to view the autopsy photos or to
interview other possible witnesses
to the slaying. Some members of
the commission had doubts about
the report, especially the so-called
“single bullet” theory. Approximately 1,100 records that have
been kept from the public will be
available in 2017.
On Oct. 15, 1964, Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. received
29
the Nobel Peace Prize for his work
in the struggle for civil rights.
Gunnar Jahn, chair of the Nobel
Committee, said in his presentation speech: “[King] is the first
person in the Western world to
have shown us that a struggle can
be waged without violence. He
is the first to make the message
of brotherly love a reality in the
course of his struggle, and he has
brought this message to all men,
to all nations and races.” He called
King “an undaunted champion
of peace.” At age 35, King was
the youngest man to receive the
Nobel Peace Prize.
King said he would give the
prize money of $54,123 to the
civil rights movement to ensure it
would continue. His Nobel lecture
was on “The Quest for Peace and
Justice.” In his acceptance speech
made on D