Michael J. Suley Oral History
Object number2025.001.0098
Date10/31/2025
ClassificationsOral Histories
Oral history interview subject
Michael J. Suley
Oral history interviewer
Stephen Fagin
Oral history interviewer
Riley Harris
ObjectOral history
Credit LineOral History Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
MediumBorn digital (.m2ts file)
DimensionsDuration: 43 Minutes
Terms
- Oral histories
- Kennedy campaign
- 1960s
- Catholicism
- 1960 presidential election
- Democrats
- Newspapers
- Cuban Missile Crisis
- Student
- Youth
- TV coverage
- Black Jack
- Rotunda
- Casket
- Mourners
- Funeral
- Dealey Plaza
- Eternal flame
- Kennedy supporter
- Oswald, Lee Harvey
- Johnson, Lyndon B.
- Kennedy, Jacqueline
- Kennedy, John F.
- U.S. Capitol
- Arlington National Cemetery
- The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
- Dallas
- Pittsburgh
- Washington, D.C.
- Childhood Recollections (OHC)
- Kennedy Funeral (OHC)
- Dallas and 1960s History and Culture (OHC)
Collections
- All Online Objects
- Oral History Collection
DescriptionVideotaped oral history interview with Michael J. Suley. A fourteen-year-old high school student in Pittsburgh in 1963, Suley paid his respects to President Kennedy in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda and observed the Kennedy funeral procession on Sunday and Monday.
Interview conducted at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza on October 31, 2025 by Stephen Fagin. The interview is forty-three minutes long.
Curatorial CommentaryThe Museum's Collection includes several artifacts, letters, oral histories, photographs, magazines and artwork relating to the Kennedy funeral in November 1963. A selection of these objects and interviews may be found in the Museum's online collections database here: President Kennedy Funeral – Collections – The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. - Riley Harris, Collections Cataloger
Michael J. Suley participated in a Living History at the Museum on the same day this one-on-one oral history interview was recorded. The program may be accessed on our YouTube channel: Living History from the Kennedy Funeral. The video includes several photographs Suley took in Washington, D.C. during the weekend of President Kennedy's funeral. - Riley Harris, Collections Cataloger
Prior to visiting Dallas for a Museum public program and this oral history on October 31, 2025, Michael J. Suley recorded an interview via Zoom for the Museum's Oral History Project on June 13, 2025.
The Museum's Michael J. Suley Collection (2025.023) includes eight photographic prints taken by Mr. Suley during the Kenendy funeral in Washington, D.C. and a photocopy of a handwritten memorial poem. - Stephen Fagin, Curator
