by Joel A. Brown
In 1863, with the Civil War at its height, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the fourth Thursday of November as a national day of Thanksgiving—meant to steady a nation in turmoil. One hundred years later, the country approached that same observance under very different but equally disquieting circumstances, only days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
On the morning of November 22, President Kennedy addressed a breakfast gathering in Fort Worth, Texas. The benediction at that event was given by Dr. Granville T. Walker, minister of University Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) on the campus of Texas Christian University. Less than two hours later, the President was shot and killed in Dallas. Two days afterward—on Sunday, November 24—Walker led the congregation in prayer and delivered a different sermon than the one he had prepared earlier in the week for Thanksgiving, now reframed by the nation’s sudden trauma. His language reflects both pastoral care and civic consciousness, offering an example of Disciples public theology in response to a national crisis.
That same week, Lyndon B. Johnson—himself a Disciple—delivered his first formal address to the nation as President. Speaking on Thanksgiving evening, Johnson situated the transition of leadership within the constitutional order and appealed to themes of unity and democratic resilience.
The two artifacts presented below—Walker’s prayer and sermon, and Johnson’s Thanksgiving address—demonstrate how Disciples history is enmeshed with the broader political and cultural currents of mid-century America. Framed within a decade that included the civil rights movement, the unfolding conflict in Vietnam, and the broader volatility of the 1960s, they reveal how two prominent Disciples figures—notably, both white men positioned within the cultural mainstream—sought to make sense of a Thanksgiving overshadowed by profound national unease.
By: Dr. Granville T. Walker, Minister, University Christian Church, Ft. Worth, Texas
Eternal God, our fathers’ hope and stay in days of crisis and alarm, our hearts turn to thee. For thou art the God of life and in thy hands are the destinies of men and nations. We adore thee, we praise thee, we magnify thy holy name.
We come now in penitence and mourning at the loss of our nation’s leader, praying that thou wilt comfort his family, especially his wife and their little ones, as only thy presence within their hearts can do. We pray for the family of the officer killed in line of duty, that they may have strength and hope. We pray for our sister community of Dallas, shocked and grief-stricken the more because the tragedy fell within her borders.
We pray for the Governor of our State that through every provision which thou hast made for the healing of our bodies, he may return to health and vigor.
We pray for the assassin that thou wilt have mercy upon his soul, and for his family that they may have strength to endure the shame which he has brought upon them.
We pray for the new President of these United States, mindful that his task is ours and ready as a nation to be rallied in renewed consecration to the ideals of liberty, freedom and justice around a new chieftain. Grant to him, our Father, a sensitivity to those ideals that have made our nation great and in which is the hope of the world. Grant to him wisdom and strength of judgment that he may be honored in the councils of the great and that through the continued leadership of our nation, peace and justice may come to rule the world. Do thou deliver us from all evil.
Now do we confess our sins, personal and national, with shame and penitence. Wherever by intemperate word or deed we have given encouragement to evil action, do thou forgive us. We are not fit to be thy fellow workers. Yet today with deep solicitude for ourselves, our families, our nation and world, we would seek peace and pursue it, and be the instruments in thy hands, opening the door on a new era for mankind.
Make us, we pray thee, one by one, better citizens both of our nation and of our world until the whole earth may become our fatherland and all humanity our care. Widen our horizons. Expand our understanding and sympathy, override our prejudices and make us fit to be children of one father, members one of another in one family of mankind.
Minister now we pray to our personal, private needs. Steady us when the strain is heavy. Fortify us when our grief is deep. Empower us in adversity and keep us radiant with an inner light when the days are dark—that none may doubt thy victory within our souls, and the ultimate victory of thy will within the world. For this we pray in the spirit and in the name of Christ.
Amen.
Sermon by Dr. Granville T. Walker, Minister, University Christian Church
November 24, 1963
I know you would reckon me as less than human if in some manner in this service of worship we did not acknowledge prayerfully and penitently the tragedy which has befallen our nation in the assassination of our President.
On last Friday morning some of us were privileged to be in his presence at the breakfast sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. We felt the warmth of his personality and the genuine greatness of his mind and spirit. He was kind to Fort Worth and to Texas in his speech. He was gentle in his personal demeanor, and his charming First Lady responded graciously to an audience which she had captivated long before she ever saw Fort Worth.
At the close of the meeting and after the President’s address, I gave the benediction, (probably the last prayer the President heard uttered) praying among other things, ironically enough, that he might have health and wisdom equal to his tremendous responsibilities.
Then making our way to the street we waited in the crowd for the caravan—little realizing that within less than two hours the President would lie mortally wounded by an assassin’s bullet.
From the “parade” we returned home, I to complete a Thanksgiving sermon for this morning’s worship. In the midst of my preparation the news came. You simply cannot imagine how those of us felt who had so recently had this personal contact with him, the Vice President, and the Governor, and their wives. It is still a thing incredible.
At the Church, the phone began ringing off the wall. Grief-stricken people were asking what we were going to do. We hastily planned a service of prayers for Friday evening, but it was late afternoon before we had the wit to make any definite arrangements, for we had been too stunned to think clearly. At eight o’clock, with the good help of the phone committee of the Christian Women’s Fellowship and the local radio stations announcing the service, the Sanctuary was filled—with chairs having to be placed in the aisles.
Prayers were offered for the President’s family, for the Governor’s well-being, for the family of the policeman who was assassinated, for the new President and his heavy burdens of office, for the assassin and his family, for the welfare of the state, the nation and the world where the influence of our highest officers of government is so keenly felt.
This morning I do not propose to preach a funeral sermon, for observances of a memorial nature will be amply available to the entire nation and specifically to our community. Monday has been declared by President Johnson as a day of national mourning, and a city-wide observance will be held tomorrow morning.
But I am persuaded that it is altogether in order for us to look again at our great heritage as Americans, to examine that heritage that we may surely know what it means to be an American, and to be a Christian as we manifest our patriotism—and to discern how profoundly important in our system one person can be. That fact stands. Whether one be the President of the United States, or his assassin, one man counts, and he may count forever.
Let us begin by saying that despite the great tragedy which has befallen us, there is much for which as Americans we can be grateful.
We can surely raise thankful hearts to Almighty God that we live in a nation whose government may change hands from one administration to another (whatever brings about the change) according to the orderly processes of law and order. The assassination of our President was asserted to be the act of a deranged mind. We do not know. What we do know is that although the overthrow of governments around the world is not uncommon in these days, such events usually precipitate or they are precipitated by revolution in its most violent forms.
Yet in our own nation the death of a President by the hands of an assassin brings mourning to the entire nation—including those who backed his policies and those who did not—and the burden is shifted from the shoulders of one man to another, quietly, while the nation mourns and is in prayer. We grieve, but we do not panic or lose our heads. The nation’s leaders die. But the nation’s mission goes on.
During these days I have not been able to distinguish between a Democrat and a Republican—for as Americans we have a loyalty higher than party. We believe in “The American Way.” We believe in the right to differ and to do so without violence. If there is a member of the “opposition” who does not deeply mourn this travesty, he is not worthy of his citizenship, for America is builded upon the principle that the “opposition” must be a “loyal opposition.” We inherited this concept from our British forebears. Even now the British speak of the party “out of power” as her Majesty’s loyal opposition. It is a great phrase—”the loyal opposition”—and it is inbred in the American way.
For the American way provides ample ground for honest differences—so long as the ultimate goal, the welfare of all our citizens, their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—is the goal of all.
In a day of crisis and alarm therefore we can be grateful that our nation can move from triumph to tragedy and from tragedy back to triumph according to the orderly processes of law and order.
We can also be grateful for the fact that in our land, government is by consent of the governed—and that government is intended for the good of all the people. Nobody surely would deny that in a democracy government is of, by, and for the people.
But in order for that tradition to exist it is necessary that there be in democracy freedom of expression for minority groups. For obviously there is no such thing as government by consent in the absence of the privilege and opportunity of dissent.
We cannot have a multiple party system of government without this. But the right of dissent is something which dictators like Khrushchev and his counterparts cannot possibly understand. I think it was Mr. Fosdick who once described the American process like this:
“We set up a government,” he said, “to rule our nation and then deliberately introduce opposition parties and minorities to hector the government, criticize and obstruct its policies. That seems to a dictator a weird idea. Yet behind it is an essential democratic faith that there is, higher than any government, a truth yet to be discovered and that the only way of getting at it is to say to the people; you are not the slaves of government. Think for yourselves. If need be, differ from the government and oppose it. There is a higher loyalty than the government to which you must be true. It is as though democracy with its doctrine of minorities were essentially saying, we must obey God rather than man.”
Now this leads logically to the observation that the unique and distinguishing characteristic of our way of government is not what a lot of people believe it is. Ask the average man what that quality is which is uniquely democratic and he will tell you that rule by majority is the distinguishing mark of our democratic-republican form of government.
Our government is that, but it is infinitely more than that. It is rule by majority plus respect for the rights of the minority. The party in power may rule, but it must respect the rights of the party not in power—the right of that party to speak and criticize and campaign against it. This is the right of dissent!
So there comes democracy’s demand for a free press, for free speech, for freedom of religion, for a free school and a free church. For as Ernest Tittle once put it, “if there is to be government by consent and not merely by the appearance of consent, there must be a free press so that people may know what is actually going on. There must be freedom of speech so that people may hear and consider what is said either for or against proposed legislation. There must be freedom of assembly so that the people may voice their convictions on issues that are vital to them. There must be not only a free press but a free school and a free church.”
In such a system everybody counts. We may well thank God at this season of Thanksgiving and despite the great tragedy that has befallen us, that we live under a government where everybody counts—whether they are in the “out party” or the “in party.” And in that system it is imperative that over and above our differences we should extend utmost respect to each other. We live in a system in which individuals count. It makes no difference whether we are good or evil—we count!
We are in a state of grief at this moment because one man of tremendous dedication tried to make his life count for the good of our country as he saw it, and because one man destroyed him with an assassin’s bullet.
For good or ill we live in a system in which everybody counts. We count for good or we count for evil, but we count! We tend to forget this when we indulge our fears, our hatreds and our prejudices beyond the point of merit, if indeed they have any merit. In a time of tension people are unusually responsive to what any of us does or says, either for good or ill. If we are optimistic, our optimism is contagious and others feel the surge of hope rising in them. If we indulge our hatred, this, too, is likely to become a part of the prevailing mood. The truth is certainly obvious that whatever our attitude toward life, we never have it all by ourselves. We make converts to it whether we will it so or not.
For my own part I fear that many people in our time and in places of influence fail to distinguish at the proper times between the Presidency as an office and the President as a politician and a man. It is a sad day for democracy when any segment of the population is so partisan that it may forget this high dimension of democracy—and give vent to its disagreement in ways that are calculated to encourage the psychopathic fringe or the ultra-extremists to do their worst. Extremism, whether to the right or to the left, is not good Americanism. It is not good religion. It is not good Christianity. It is altogether not beyond the possible that our grief in this moment stems from this very unfortunate kind of encouragement which no person in his sanity would want to be party to.
In America I think we have lost sensitivity to this point. We have become callous about some vastly important matters. In the last few decades we have tended to speak with contempt about, and therefore to bring great disrespect upon, the highest offices of our land. We have done this because at times we have not agreed with the man who held the office. It is a sad state of affairs. It is this which brings the vermin out from under the rocks. It is this which invites the irresponsible or the outright committed Communist or Fascist to take action which every reasonable and honorable person regrets. We desperately need to restore in the minds and hearts of our people respect for the highest offices in our land regardless of who may hold those offices. This is the very essence of our democratic way.
Let me make this appeal quite personal if it is not too personal already. It is a matter of great distress to me that a man like a certain Fort Worth citizen who is willing to give a portion of his life to high responsibility in our Federal Government, will as a result of this dedication, have his good name dragged in the mud by politicians who for reasons known only to themselves have placed their own self-aggrandizement above the welfare of the nation. It is enough to discourage any honorable man from accepting or seeking any kind of political office. And if we frighten away enough of them we are done for as a republic!
Let us be thankful to Almighty God if the crisis itself brings us back to our senses. Let the moment of our grief and shock remind us that in our form of government there is room for loyal opposition, but for no other kind of opposition. Let the crisis remind us that as individuals, however obscure we may think ourselves to be, we count, if for no other reason than that every one of us is selling ideas and attitudes and the faiths we live by to other people, and therefore we never stand alone.
Let us be grateful for a great heritage. It is a heritage of law and order. It is a heritage of respect for the opinions of all honorable people. It is a heritage that declares that all men were created equal by the God of heaven and earth and that every man has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is a heritage that says that God is God, and as a nation we must trust and serve him.
It is a heritage of respect for the opinions of those who differ from us but who are nevertheless as loyal as we are to our way of life.
It is a heritage that insists that everyone of us counts and therefore our counting must be on the side of rectitude and honor.
It is a heritage that insists that we as individuals in our habits in our day by day behavior, in our speech and conduct, are becoming either a part of the answer or a part of the problem in our world.
With sad hearts we come toward the day of Thanksgiving, but let it not be a day wasted, but a day in which our recognition of what it really means to be an American is reborn—a day in which we may, therefore, cry out with the Psalmist, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.”
Transcript:
My fellow Americans:
Yesterday I went before the Congress to speak for the first time as President of the United States. Tonight, on this Thanksgiving, I come before you to ask your help, to ask your strength, to ask your prayers that God may guard this republic and guide my every labor.
All of us have lived through seven days that none of us will ever forget. We’re not given the divine wisdom to answer why this has been, but we are given the human duty of determining what is to be—what is to be for America, for the world, for the cause we lead, for all the hopes that live in our hearts.
A great leader is dead, a great nation must move on.
Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose. I am resolved that we shall win the tomorrows before us. So I ask you to join me in that resolve determined that from this midnight of tragedy we shall move toward a new American greatness.
More than any generation before us we have cause to be thankful, so thankful, on this Thanksgiving Day.
Our harvests are bountiful, our factories flourish, our homes are safe, our defenses are secure. We live in peace, the goodwill of the world pours out for us. But more than these blessings we know tonight that our system is strong—strong and secure. A deed that was meant to tear us apart has bound us together.
Decency and Strength
Our system has passed, you have passed, a great test. You have shown what John F. Kennedy called upon us to show in his proclamation of this Thanksgiving, that decency of purpose, that steadfastness of resolve, and that strength of will which we inherit from our forefathers.
What better conveys what is best for America than this.
On Saturday, when these great burdens had been mine only hours, the first two citizens to call upon me and to offer their whole support were Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harry S. Truman. Since last Friday Americans have turned to the good, to the decent values of our life.
These have served us. Yes, these have saved us. The service of our public institutions and our public men is the salvation of us all from the Supreme Court to the states. And how much better would it be, how much more sane it would be, how much more decent an American it would be if all Americans could give their time, and spend their energies helping our system and its servants to solve your problems instead of pouring out the venom and the hate that stalemate us in progress.
I have served in Washington 32 years—32 years yesterday. I have seen five Presidents fill this awesome office. I have known them well, and I’ve counted them all as friends— President Herbert Hoover, President Franklin Roosevelt, President Harry Truman, President Dwight Eisenhower and President John Kennedy. In each Administration the greatest burden that the President had to bear had been the burden of his own countrymen’s unthinking and unreasoning hate and division.
So, in these days, the fate of this office is the fate of us all.
I would ask all Americans in reverence to think on these things. Let all who speak, and all who teach, and all who preach, and all who publish, and all who broadcast, and all who read or listen, let them reflect upon their responsibilities to bind our wounds, to heal our sores, to make our society well and whole for the tests ahead of us.
It is this work that I most want us to do, to banish rancor from our words and malice from our hearts—to close down the poison springs of hatred and intolerance and fanaticism—to perfect our unity North and South, East and West, to hasten the day when bias of race, religion and region is no more and to bring the day when our great energies, and decencies and spirit will be free of the burden that we have borne too long.
Our view is outward. Our thrust is forward. But we remember in our hearts this brave young man who lies in honored eternal rest across the Potomac. We remember him. We remember his wonderful and courageous widow that we all love. We remember Caroline and John and all the great family who gave the nation this son and brother.
To Rename Canaveral
And to honor his memory and the future of the work that he started I have today determined that Station No. 1 of the Atlantic Missile Range and the NASA Launch Operation Center in Florida shall hereafter be known as the John F. Kennedy Space Center.
I have also acted today with the understanding and the support of my friend, the Governor of Florida, Farris Bryant, to change the name of Cape Canaveral. It shall be known hereafter as Cape Kennedy.
On this Thanksgiving Day as we gather in the warmth of our families, in the mutual love and respect which we have for one another and as we bow our heads in submission to Divine Providence, let us also thank God for the years that He gave us inspiration through His servant.
Let us today renew our dedication to the ideals that are American.
Let us pray for His Divine wisdom in banishing from our land any injustice or intolerance or oppression to any of our fellow Americans, whatever their opinion, whatever the color of their skins, for God made all of, not some of us, in His image. All of us, not just some of us, are His children.
And finally, to you as your President, I ask that you remember your country and remember me each day in your prayers and I pledge to you that I will go to work for a new American greatness—a new day when peace is more secure—when justice is more universal, when it is made more strong in every home of all mankind.
Thank you and good night.