The Shot

Book excerpt: Ask anyone old enough where they were when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated and theyll be able to tell you. Photojournalist Robert Hill Jackson was riding in the presidents motorcade that fateful day. He heard the shots ring out from the Dallas School Book Depository, and when he looked up at the sixth floor, he saw a rifle being withdrawn from a window. Jackson captured the events of that day so everyone could see them. From the cheering fans at Dallas Love Field Airport to the grief on peoples faces at Parkland Hospital, he was there with his camera as a witness to history. But he had yet to capture his most famous photo, which came Nov. 24, 1963, when he took a photograph of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald. The iconic photograph earned him the Pulitzer Prize in photojournalism, and he would refer to it as the shot, which was a reference to the photography shot as well as Rubys gunshot. Jackson would go on to cover the Ruby trial and its bigger-than-life characters, and his photographs were incredible and provoking. Get a behind-the-scenes look at his life and storied career with this well-researched biography.