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Why is J.F.K. such a famous and controversial character today

to enforce the constitution that was often characteristic of JFKs domestic proposals.

Needless to say, none of his bills passed while he was alive. However, what was his most influential and ambitious domestic bill did eventually pass. In the summer of 1963, African-Americans organised a "March on Washington". It was at this march that The Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr. gave his infamous "I Have A Dream" speech. In light of this pivotal moment for the civil rights movement, John Fitzgerald Kennedy submitted a civil rights bill, saying that the grandchildren of the slaves freed by Lincoln "are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice." It passed after his death.

By his untimely assasination, Kennedy achieved immortality. On November 22nd 1963 John F. Kennedy, his wife and Vice President Lyndon Johnson, and Mr. and Mrs. John Connally, Texas Governor were travelling by motorcade allong Elm Street in Dallas, Texas. As they passed Dealey's Plaza shots rang out. Both the President and the Governor were wounded. The limousine picked up speed and raced to the Parkland Hospital where Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1:00. After this Dallas police allegedly found evidence including a rifle and spent cartridges that were linked to Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald then allegedly shot and killed a patrol man named Tippit. Oswald was charged of both murders but as he was being transferred to prison he was shot by Jack Ruby, a local nightclub owner.

On November 29, 1963, President Johnson established a commission, headed by Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, to investigate the assassination. The Warren Commission made its findings public on September 24, 1964 - it concluded that Oswald acted alone when he killed the President. Discrepancies in the Warren Report led to numerous subsequent official and unofficial investigations in succeeding years. On January 2, 1979, the House of Representative's Select Committee on Assassinations supported the Warren panel's conclusion that Oswald fired the fatal shots. But, the committee also found that, based on audio recordings of the shooting taken from police radios at the time of the assassination, that a second gunman had fired at the motorcade from the grassy knoll. The House Select Committee concluded that President Kennedy "was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy."

Given that there are so many questions emenating from the Warren Commission, this is an event in history which has always attracted many conspiracies, including that of Kennedy being asassinated by; the FBI, the CIA, the Mafia, Lyndon Johnson, George Bush Senior, himself... the list continues. The point is that his assasination is one that left a long legacy. Some people may argue that his cherished reforms may not have been passed were it not for the fact that his asassination developed sympathy. In any case, all but one of his laws were passed - the law on medicare.