DALLAS (AP) — Just minutes after President John F. Kennedy was fatally shot as his motorcade rolled by means of downtown Dallas, Associated Press reporter Peggy Simpson rushed to the scene and instantly connected herself to the law enforcement officials who had converged on the constructing from which a sniper’s bullets had been fired.

“I was sort of under their armpit,” Simpson mentioned, noting that each time she was capable of get any info from them, she would rush to a pay cellphone to name her editors, after which “go back to the cops.”

Simpson, now 84, is among the many final surviving witnesses who’re sharing their tales because the nation marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination on Wednesday.

“A tangible link to the past is going to be lost when the last voices from that time period are gone,” mentioned Stephen Fagin, curator at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, which tells the story of the assassination from the Texas School Book Depository, the place Lee Harvey Oswald’s sniper’s perch was discovered.

“So many of the voices that were here, even 10 years ago, to share their memories — law enforcement officials, reporters, eyewitnesses — so many of those folks have passed away,” he mentioned.

Simpson, former U.S. Secret Service Agent Clint Hill and others are featured in “JFK: One Day in America,” a three-part collection from National Geographic launched this month that pairs their recollections with archival footage, a few of which has been colorized for the primary time. Director Ella Wright mentioned that listening to from those that have been there helps inform the “behind the scenes” story that augments archival footage.

“We wanted people to really understand what it felt like to be back there and to experience the emotional impact of those events,” Wright mentioned.

People nonetheless flock to Dealey Plaza, which the presidential motorcade was passing by means of when Kennedy was killed.

“The assassination certainly defined a generation,” Fagin mentioned. “For those people who lived through it and came of age in the 1960s, it represented a significant shift in American culture.”

On the day of the assassination, Simpson had initially been assigned to attend a night fundraising dinner for Kennedy in Austin. With time on her palms earlier than she wanted to depart Dallas, she was despatched to observe the presidential motorcade, however she wasn’t close to Dealey Plaza.

Simpson had no concept that something out of the atypical had occurred till she arrived at The Dallas Times Herald’s constructing the place the AP’s workplace was positioned. Stepping off an elevator, she heard a newspaper receptionist say, “All we know is that the president has been shot,” after which heard the paper’s editor briefing the employees.

She raced to the AP workplace in time to observe over the bureau chief’s shoulder as he filed the information to the world, after which ran out to the Texas School Book Depository to trace down extra info.

Later, at police headquarters, she mentioned, she witnessed “just a wild, crazy chaotic, unfathomable scene.” Reporters had stuffed the hallways the place an officer walked by means of with Lee Harvey Oswald ’s rifle held aloft. The suspect’s mom and spouse arrived, and at one level authorities held a information convention the place Oswald was requested questions by reporters.

“I was just with a great mass of other reporters, just trying to find any bit of information,” she mentioned.

Two days later, Simpson was overlaying Oswald’s switch from police headquarters to the county jail, when nightclub proprietor Jack Ruby burst forth from a gaggle of reports reporters and shot the suspect lifeless.

As law enforcement officials wrestled with Ruby on the ground, Simpson rushed to a close-by financial institution of telephones “and started dictating everything I saw to the AP editors,” she mentioned. In that second, she was simply fascinated about getting out the information.

“As an AP reporter, you just go for the phone, you can’t process anything at that point,” she mentioned.

Simpson mentioned she will need to have heard the gunshot however she will be able to’t keep in mind it.

“Probably Ruby was 2 or 3 feet away from me but I didn’t know him, didn’t see him, didn’t see him come out from the crowd of reporters,” she mentioned.

Simpson’s recollections are included in an oral historical past assortment on the Sixth Floor Museum that now contains about 2,500 recordings, in accordance with Fagin.

The museum curator mentioned Simpson is “a terrific example of somebody who was just where the action was that weekend and got caught up in truly historic events while simply doing her job as a professional journalist.”

Fagin mentioned oral histories are nonetheless being recorded. Many of the newer ones have been with individuals who have been youngsters within the ’60s and remembered listening to concerning the assassination whereas in school.

“It’s a race against time really to try to capture these recollections,” Fagin mentioned.