#project wideawake
Political unrest over the election of Civil Rights proponent John F. Kennedy to the office of President of the United States was already reaching dangerous levels by 1962. During that year’s Cuban Missile Crisis, rumors of “beings with fantastic and dangerous superpowers” began circulating, fueled by eyewitness accounts of naval officers present. The rumors were largely dismissed, but some, including retired US Army Major General Edwin Partridge, were believers.
Partridge was active in the Dallas, Texas political scene, speaking at right-wing rallies and stoking the flames of segregation. He had begun subtly slipping allusions to mutants into his speeches as early as 1961, attracting the attention of violent mutant rights activist Erik Lehnsherr, also known as Magneto.
Lehnsherr recruited 24-year-old Marine Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate Partridge. On April 10, 1963, Oswald completed the job, shooting Partridge in the head with a rifle as he sat at his kitchen table. This event lead the Kennedy administration to commission Project Wideawake, and on the other side of the political spectrum, strengthened the convictions of Partridge’s followers. Mutant hate groups such as Friends of Humanity and the Purifiers sprung up across the American south, and throughout the 1963 “Summer of Hate” at least a dozen suspected mutants were murdered.
(X-Men: Days of Future Past, 2014)
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