September 5th 2024.
Recently uncovered footage has emerged of the motorcade carrying President John F. Kennedy as it raced down a Dallas freeway towards a hospital after he was fatally shot. This rare footage will soon be up for auction in Boston on September 28th. While some may find this discovery surprising, experts say that there is still a possibility of uncovering new material related to the assassination even after more than 60 years.
Stephen Fagin, curator at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, where the tragic events of November 22, 1963 are remembered, explains that such footage and photographs are often discovered or rediscovered in attics or garages. He also mentions that they are not the only ones to have come across such findings. Others have found similar material, proving that there may still be more to uncover about this historic event.
The 8mm home film that will be up for auction was captured by Dale Carpenter Sr. It begins with him just missing the president's limousine but captures other vehicles in the motorcade as it travels down Lemmon Avenue towards the city center. The footage then picks up after Kennedy has been shot, with Carpenter rolling as the motorcade speeds down Interstate 35. Bobby Livingston, executive vice president of the auction house, describes the footage as remarkable and in color, allowing viewers to feel the intensity of the moment as the motorcade reaches speeds of 80mph.
The footage from Interstate 35, which lasts about 10 seconds, captures US Secret Service agent Clint Hill hovering over the president and Jacqueline Kennedy in a standing position. Hill, who famously jumped onto the back of the limousine as the shots rang out, reveals that he did not know if there were more shots to come as he made his way to the car. The shots had been fired as the motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in front of the Texas School Book Depository, where assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had positioned himself on the sixth floor. This infamous assassination was also captured on film by Abraham Zapruder.
After the shots rang out, the motorcade quickly turned onto I-35 and sped towards Parkland Memorial Hospital where Kennedy would later be pronounced dead. Interestingly, this was the same route that the motorcade would have taken to deliver Kennedy to his next stop, a speech at the Trade Mart.
Carpenter's grandson, James Gates, shares that while his family was aware that his grandfather had film from that day, they did not talk about it often. When Gates inherited the film, he was not sure what it contained. However, after projecting it onto his bedroom wall in 2010, he was shocked by what he saw. The footage from I-35 was particularly striking to him, especially Hill's precarious position on the back of the limousine. Gates eventually got in touch with Hill and his co-author, Lisa McCubbin Hill, who married Hill in 2021.
Lisa McCubbin Hill praises Gates for his sensitivity in wanting Hill to see the footage before deciding what to do with it. She shares that seeing the footage of Hill's experience on the back of the limousine as it raced down the interstate was heart-stopping.
While the auction house has released still photos from the film, they are not publicly releasing the portion that shows the motorcade on the interstate. Historian and former FBI analyst Farris Rookstool III, who has seen the film, explains that it gives a more complete look at the rush to Parkland than other fragmented footage he has seen. He hopes that after the auction, the film will end up in the hands of filmmakers who can use it to shed new light on this tragic event.
Fagin adds that the assassination was such a shocking and significant event that people instinctively held onto anything related to it, leaving the possibility of new material surfacing. He shares the story of Jay Skaggs, who walked into the museum in 2002 with a shoebox containing 20 images from Dealey Plaza before and after the assassination. These images included the only known color photographs of the rifle being removed from the Texas School Book Depository building. Fagin explains that Skaggs had been the photographer captured in one of the iconic photos from that day, and he had no idea that his images were of such importance. He simply handed the box over to the museum, unaware of the historical value of his photographs.
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