Here is the "outside of the US" perspective: I wasn't even born yet, but my mom always remembers this day...she was about 14 years old and they were celebrating a cousin's birthay in Guatemala...someone ran in and said "They shot and killed Presidente Kennedy in Dallas..." they all ran to my mom's house (which was the only one on the block with a TV back then), my mom said you could hear a pin drop as they watched the news reports...needless to say, her cousins party came to an abrupt stop.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends ~~M. Angelou~~