The Summer of 1963 was a beginning for some, and an ending for many more. America would never quite be so young again as it was that year.
On July 1, ZIP Codes came into use. Most towns weren't big enough to need more than one postal zone. For those that were, there were simple numbers, one or two digits, starting in 1943. For example: From the time he was born in 1943 until he went off to war in 1965, my father lived in the Forest Hill Section of the North Ward of Newark. People living in the North Ward would write their addresses as "Newark 4, New Jersey." With ZIP Codes, it became "Newark, NJ 07104." Note that the 4 became the last digit. An address of "New York 17, NY" became "New York, NY 10017."
Outside cities, ZIP Codes were arranged alphabetically. For example, I grew up in East Brunswick, in Central New Jersey. Our ZIP Code was, and remains, 08816. A town neighboring us both geographically and alphabetically, Edison, had 08817, 08818 and 08820, with 08819 available for overspill. (So far, despite Edison's huge growth, it hasn't been needed.) Oddly, they also use 08837.
Of all the changes that happened in America in the 1960s, and particularly during the Administration of President John F. Kennedy, two that were huge parts of our culture, but are rarely talked about now, are the institutions of Area and ZIP Codes.
On July 2, baseball pitchers Juan Marichal of the San Francisco Giants and Warren Spahn of the Milwaukee Braves faced off against each other in a National League game that one author would later call "the greatest game ever pitched." Marichal was 24 years old. Spahn was 42. Tied 0-0 after 9 innings, the game was won in the 16th by the Giants on a home run by Willie Mays.
On July 5, actress Edie Falco was born. And a delegation from the People's Republic of China, led by Prime Minister Zhou Enali, departed from Beijing on a train bound for Moscow, to attend talks in an effort to repair the poor relations between the Chinese Communists and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The talks, intended to mend the Sino-Soviet split, broken down on July 14, when the Soviets published a rebuttal to Chinese charges that the Soviets had departed from the Communist ideology.
On July 10, the all-white University of South Carolina was ordered to admit its first African-American student, Henri Monteith, by order of U.S. District Judge J. Robert Martin. On the same day, Judge Martin ordered the desegregation of all 26 of South Carolina's State Parks.
On July 11, in South America, there was a military coup in Ecuador, and the Argentine ferry Ciudad de Asunción sank in the River Plate between the capital cities of Buenos Aires, Argentina and Montevideo, Uruguay. Hockey Hall-of-Famer Al MacInnis and actress Lisa Rinna were born.
On July 12, 16-year-old Pauline Reade was abducted and murdered by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady in Manchester, England. It was the 1st of their 5 "Moors Murders." On July 13, Kenny Johnston was born. He played the Flash in the 1997 Justice League of America movie. Also born that day was Anthony "Spud" Webb, who became an NBA slam-dunk artists despite being only 5-foot-6. Danish actress Brigitte Nielsen was born on July 15, and American actress Phoebe Cates on July 16.
At the height of the Summer, "Wildwood Days" was a Top 20 hit. Wildwood is on the Jersey Shore, and attracts people from New York City, 155 miles to the north; and Philadelphia, 90 miles to the northwest. It was sung by a Philadelphia-born, -bred and -based doo-wop singer, Bobby Rydell.
On July 22, Sonny Liston retained the Heavyweight Championship of the World, by winning a rematch with the man from whom he took the title, Floyd Patterson. Both fights ended in 1st-round knockouts. Liston is now on a collision course with challenger Cassius Clay. Clay would take the title from him in 1964, and change his name to Muhammad Ali. Also on July 22, actor Rob Estes was born.
On July 24, the American Legion-sponsored Boys Nation event was held at the White House. JFK shook hands with all of the delegates, including an Arkansas delegate soon to turn 17: Bill Clinton. Clinton would be elected President in 1992. Also on July 24, Karl Malone, a future member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, was born. On July 26, an earthquake in Skopje (then in Yugoslavia, now the capital of North Macedonia) killed 1,800 people.
On July 30, the Soviet newspaper Izvestia reported that British diplomat Kim Philby, who had disappeared on January 23, had been given asylum in Moscow, as a double agent. And actress Lisa Kudrow, famous for her role on the 1990s sitcom Friends, was born. So was another Basketball Hall-of-Famer, Chris Mullin.
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Artis Leon Ivey Jr., eventually to become the rapper known as Coolio, was born on August 1. On August 2, the Green Bay Packers were upset in the Chicago College All-Star Game. It would be the last time that the defending NFL Champions lost the game, which was played from 1934 to 1963. On August 3, Phil Graham, the publisher of The Washington Post, shot and killed himself. His wife, Katherine Graham, inherited the paper, and ran it better. The same day, Metallica singer James Hetfield was born.
Keith Ellison, the Minnesota Democrat who became the 1st Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress, was born on August 4. On August 5, Mark Strong was born. The bald English actor became known for playing villains. That day, the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed by U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, British Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home (soon to become Prime Minister), and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko.
On August 7, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy gave birth to a son, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy. The boy was born with bad lungs, and died just 2 days later. Supposedly, the tragedy brought the President and the First Lady closer together.
On August 8, a Royal Mail train headed from Glasgow to London is robbed at Bridego Railway Bridge in Ledburn, Buckinghamshire, about 45 miles northwest of London. It becomes known as the Great Train Robbery. A gang of 16 men, led by Bruce Reynolds, without using firearms, escaped with £2.61 million pounds -- about £70 million in 2023, or $88 million with the current exchange rate -- mostly in £1 and £5 notes. The police soon cracked the case, and most of the gang was convicted, with the ringleaders were sentenced to 30 years in prison.
On August 9, Lee Harvey Oswald and 3 Cuban men were arrested in New Orleans after fighting. Each man spent the night in jail, and was released. Singer Whitney Houston was born that same day. Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee died on August 10. He had launched hearings into organized crime, and run for President in 1952 and 1956, becoming the Democratic nominee for Vice President in the latter year.
Valerie Plame, CIA Agent turned 2003 cause célèbre, was born on August 13. On August 14, playwright Clifford Odets died, and actress Emmanuelle Beart was born. On August 15, convicted murderer Eddie Mays was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison. He remains the last person executed in the State of New York. Actor John Stamos was born on August 19. The future King Mohammed VI of Morocco was born on August 21, and singer Tori Amos on August 22.
August 24 saw American John Pennel become the 1st pole vaulter to top 17 feet. It also saw the first games played in the Bundesliga (meaning "federal league"), the 1st professional soccer league in Germany. Due to its culture of sports clubs, Germany was well behind the rest of Europe in starting pro soccer. That would change, as Bayern Munich and, to lesser extents, clubs such as Borussia Mönchengladbach, Borussia Dortmund, and Hamburger SV would become among the best in Europe.
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W.E.B. Du Bois, once a leading figure in the Civil Rights Movement, died in exile in the African nation of Ghana, at the age of 95, on August 27. On August 28, the March On Washington for Jobs and Freedom brought 250,000 people to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. It was organized by union leader A. Philip Randolph and organizer Bayard Rustin.
Mahalia Jackson, then America's greatest living singer of gospel music, sang "How I Got Over." Marian Anderson, who had sung at the Lincoln Memorial in an Easter concert before 75,000 in 1939, sang "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." Joan Baez sang "We Shall Overcome," Bob Dylan sang, "Only a Pawn in Their Game," and, then a couple, together they sang Bob's song "When the Ship Comes In." Peter, Paul and Mary sang "If I Had a Hammer" and Bob's song "Blowin' in the Wind." Odetta sang "I'm On My Way."
Other celebrities on hand: Singers Josephine Baker, Harry Belafonte, Sammy Davis Jr., Diahann Carroll, Lena Horne, Judy Garland and Bobby Darin; actors Sidney Poitier, Marlon Brando, Burt Lancaster, James Garner, Robert Ryan, Rita Moreno, married couple Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, married couple Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, and, surprising many people only old enough to remember him as a conservative and a gun-rights advocate, Charlton Heston; novelist James Baldwin; and baseball trailblazer Jackie Robinson.
But it would be remembered for the speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., chairman of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Early in his speech, he said some things that many white Americans did not want to hear -- and probably still don't, because they are largely still true:
In a sense, we have come to our Nation’s Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our great republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given its colored people a bad check, a check that has come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice.
A little later, he said, confronting the differing challenges of South and North:
We cannot be satisfied as long as a colored person in Mississippi cannot vote, and a colored person in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
When he seemed to be wrapping up, Mahalia Jackson remembered a speech he had given a few weeks earlier, at Cobo Hall in Detroit, in which he spoke of a dream he had. She said, "Martin, tell them about the dream." He did:
I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that, one day, this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that, one day, out in the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that, one day, even the state of Mississippi, a State sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will, one day, live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
He went on a little longer with this point. And his closing was unforgettable:
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But, not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
"My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died. Land of thy pilgrims' pride. From every mountainside, let freedom ring."
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every State and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."
Watching the speech on television, President John F. Kennedy told the others in the room, "He's damn good." Afterward, Dr. King was among the figures from the demonstration invited to meet him at the White House.
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On August 30, the Moscow-Washington hotline began operations, as the U.S. Department of Defense made a one-sentence announcement to the world press: "The direct communication link between Washington and Moscow is now operational." Because the spoken word could be misunderstood, the hot line was actually a link of teletype machines, rather than the red telephone commonly depicted in television and film.
On the same day, the modern audio cassette tape, and the tape recorder that used it, were both introduced to the public by the Philips Company. For the next 30 years, the "cassette" would be the standard form of portable recorded music. Kansas City Chiefs rookie Stone Johnson, a former U.S. Olympic sprinter, sustained a fractured vertebra in his neck during a kickoff return in a preseason game against the Houston Oilers. He would die on September 8 as a result of the injury. Actors Michael Chiklis and Mark Strong were born. And on August 31, French cubist painter Georges Braque died.
September 2, Monday, was Labor Day, the symbolic, if not meteorological, end of Summer. At 6:30 PM U.S. Eastern Time, Walter Cronkite, who had become the anchor of The CBS Evening News the year before, began the broadcast by saying, "Good evening from our CBS newsroom in New York, on this, the first broadcast of network television's first half-hour news program." Cronkite would remain the anchor until 1981.
The first show included a prerecorded segment of Cronkite's interview with President John F. Kennedy, live from the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, on Massachusetts' Cape Cod. He asked JFK about his 1964 re-election campaign (on who his opponent would be, he said, "There are a good many of them"), civil rights, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and the U.S. role in the civil role in Vietnam.
JFK said something that has led people to think that, eventually, he would have pulled U.S. troops out: "In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it, the people of Viet-Nam, against the Communists."
But, next, he said something that made others think that he would have kept the troops in for the long hault: "All we can do is help, and we are making it very clear, but I don't agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a great mistake. I know people don't like Americans to be engaged in this kind of an effort. Forty-seven Americans have been killed in combat with the enemy, but this is a very important struggle even though it is far away. We took all this -- made this effort to defend Europe. Now Europe is quite secure. We also have to participate -- we may not like it -- in the defense of Asia.
Over the months of September, October and November 1963, JFK would deepen the U.S. effort in Vietnam. Would he have continued that in 1964, knowing that he had to get re-elected? Would he have taken a 1964 win as a mandate to keep it going? Would he have taken a 1964 win as a mandate to get out of Vietnam safely, since he could tell people he was "chickening out" that the people were behind him?
Because of the events of November 22, 1963, we will never know.
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Jacqueline McDonnell made a living as a backup singer, and had one hit record, under the name Robin Ward: It was titled "Wonderful Summer," but it wasn't released until November. In December, it reached the Top 20. Perhaps, in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, people had already begun to be nostalgic for an era that had been lost.
A few weeks later, The Beatles came, and people began to feel good again.