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JFK assassination film footage up for auction

caption: FILE - Seen through the foreground convertible's windshield, President John F. Kennedy's hand reaches toward his head within seconds of being fatally shot as first lady Jacqueline Kennedy holds his forearm as the motorcade proceeds along Elm Street past the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, on Nov. 22, 1963. (James W. "Ike" Altgens/AP)
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FILE - Seen through the foreground convertible's windshield, President John F. Kennedy's hand reaches toward his head within seconds of being fatally shot as first lady Jacqueline Kennedy holds his forearm as the motorcade proceeds along Elm Street past the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, on Nov. 22, 1963. (James W. "Ike" Altgens/AP)

The assassination of John F. Kennedy was a moment that defined a generation.

On Nov. 22, 1963, a Texas businessman and home movie buff from a Dallas suburb drove into Dealey Plaza with his 8mm camera to capture the posh of the presidential motorcade. He was one of a couple hundred thousand people who turned out to see the president that day. He ended up filming the president’s limousine as it was racing to the Parkland Hospital seconds after Kennedy was shot. He stowed that film reel in a round metal canister inside a milk crate filled with other home movies. Decades later, his grandson discovered it. Now that film snippet is up for auction.

Here & Now‘s Peter O’Dowd talks with Stephen Fagin, curator for the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza located inside the former Texas School Book Depository where Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

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