Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Proclamation 3629—John F. Kennedy, A Rededication

November 19, 1964


By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

In John Kennedy's life he drew guidance from history. In death he has entered and enriched it.

For history is more than the record of man's conflict with nature and himself. It is the knowledge which gives dimension to the present, direction to the future, and humility to the leaders of men. A nation, like a person, not conscious of its own past is adrift without purpose or protection against the contending forces of dissolution.

Thus America will draw continual strength and direction from his story. And the intensity and love with which we celebrate his greatness will be a measure of our own.

He had one quality which we must now strive to share. He saw the world and its problems in all their fantastic complexity. A thousand blending shades of interest and outlook made up a challenge where difficulty was piled upon difficulty and danger upon danger.

Yet he was unshaken in his faith that man's problems could be solved by man, and in his determination to make the effort.

We too must have the courage to confront complexity, never permitting it to sever the nerve of action or dull the edge of faith.

He had qualities of greatness. But it is among the hazards of fortune whether character will join with circumstances to produce great deeds.

It can be said of him, as Thomas Jefferson said of George Washington: "Never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in everlasting remembrance."

Now, Therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States of America, do proclaim Sunday, November twenty second, 1964, a day of national rededication. On that day, let the word go forth, to friend and foe alike, that the vision of John F. Kennedy still guides the Nation which was the source and the object of his greatness.

In churches and homes everywhere, on November twenty-second, let us rededicate ourselves to the pursuit of those ideals of human dignity in which he believed and whose course he so brilliantly illuminated.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

DONE at the City of Washington this nineteenth day of November in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and eighty-ninth.

Signature of Lyndon B. Johnson

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

By the President:

DEAN RUSK

Secretary of State

Lyndon B. Johnson, Proclamation 3629—John F. Kennedy, A Rededication Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/241580

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