In the early 1960s, Dallas became known as the City of Hate. The city was ground zero to many of the country's major right-wing figures—and, on the other side, to Lee Harvey Oswald. (The era is the subject of an excellent new book by Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis, which is excerpted here.) But one thing that stands out today is how the era's rhetoric—with a president from a new ethnic group derided as a socialist and a traitor—has in common with our own. A gallery of images from JFK-era Dallas:
LBJ Library Photo by John Mazziotta/Dallas Times Herald
U.S. Rep. Bruce Alger
One of the first right-wing Republicans to represent a Southern district, Alger was a leading anticommunist of his era. In the closing days of the 1960 campaign, he helped organize a protest against a Kennedy campaign swing by Lyndon Johnson.
LBJ Library Photo by Dallas Times Herald
The "Mink-Coat Riot"
The late attacks on the Kennedy-Johnson campaign—captured in images of Lady Bird Johnson being spat at—backfired. Richard Nixon blamed Alger for his defeat.
Associated Press
Demonstrations against the U.N.
The case of Povl Bang-Jensen—a Danish diplomat who died, in what was ruled a suicide, after refusing to give a list of Hungarian revolution witnesses to his U.N. supervisors—was a far-right cause celebre.
Associated Press
Protesting the U.N.
Robert Hatfield flies a flag upside-down in the "under distress" position.
Associated Press
Air Force One arrives
The president is greeted by a Confederate flag and anti-NAACP, anti-socialist signage.
Associated Press
Anything but J.F.K.
More protests from the airport.
Associated Press
Attack on Stevenson
Protesters surround U.N. ambassador Adlai Stevenson during an October, 1963 visit to Dallas. He was hit by one of the signs.
Courtesy The Sixth Floor Museaum at Dealy Plaza
Treason
Roughly 5,000 of these handbills were anonymously distributed around Dallas.