Image of a large group of motorcade spectators on Main Street

Object featured in special exhibition, Two Days in Texas, November 8, 2023 through September 28, 2024.

Although there were two Dallas Morning News photographers in the Kennedy motorcade, we know with certainty that this particular image was captured by chief photographer Tom Dillard thanks to other images on the same negative strip. Shortly after snapping this image of enthusiastic bystanders on Main Street, Dillard - riding in Camera Car #3 - took wide shots showing the view in front of and behind his vehicle in the parade. Image 2014.080.1046.0005 of his forward view clearly shows his Dallas Morning News colleague Clint Grant, who was riding in Camera Car #2 along with White House photographer Cecil Stoughton and others. Another occupant of Camera Car #2, Art Rickerby of Life Magazine, can be easily identified from behind since he wore a distinctive light-colored seersucker suit on November 22, 1963. The following image on the same negative strip, 2014.080.1046.0006, shows the vehicle behind Dillard's Camera Car #3, officially designated Congressman's Car #1. That vehicle contained U.S. Representatives Homer Thornberry, Walter Rogers and George Mahon as well as Larry O'Brien, Special Assistant to the President. Shortly after this series of photographs was taken on Main Street, Dillard used his 35mm camera to take the first still photograph showing the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, captured seconds after the last shot was fired in Dealey Plaza. - Stephen Fagin, Curator