I'm doing a report on Lee Harvey Oswald for a law class, and I'm not sure what his motive was for killing JFK,can someone explain this to me?

Tens of thousands of people have asked that question over the half century since that murder. Nobody has yet come up with a definitive answer.

Most importantly, nobody can know for sure whether L H O was a lone wolf or whether he was part of a conspiracy. In general the answer seems to be that he was a lone wolf ,so perhaps he just wanted his "15 minutes of fame " (quote from Andy Warhol).

In any case of that sort true motives are seldom known.

who says he did?

To date there has never been any sort of "trial" presenting AND cross examining all the actual evidence from an unbiased point of view

In fact there is very little hard evidence that actually connects oswald to the killing.

There was more actual evidence against OJ Simpson and he was found not guilty.

Well, there are plenty of wacko conspiracy theorists who will be happy to explain to you that Oswald was under the direction of Illuminati brain waves beamed into his head by Elvis, or something, but if you want to find out pretty much everything we actually know about Oswald, the Warren Commission Report and the book "Death of a President" by William Manchester will give you plenty of well-researched, well-documented information.

Basically, Oswald was a nutcase, a little guy who wanted to be a big shot, who took advantage of his Marine Corps training and Texas's stupid pro-gun laws to make himself important by killing the president. He had some very confused Communist ideology but that seems to have had little or nothing to do with his crime. He was just a crazy guy in gun-crazed Texas who had the good luck to be working in a building where he had a perfect shot at the President.

Oswald had no motive to kill the president and denied having done so. He claimed he was "A patsy". That was a slang word back then for a scapegoat.

Oh, my god, I can't believe some of the other answers here. Consider this, Oswald defected to the Soviet Union during the height of the cold war. Then he returned to the U.S. a short time later with no trouble. WTF???

LHO was a little man who wanted to be a big man. Kennedy was a target of opportunity. I don't think he really had anything against the President.

No one knows. Oswald was killed before he could expound on his motives and left no written record of what he might have been thinking.

Motive is immaterial, there is no clear cut evidence as to his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

That has never been determined with primary or secondary sources. Any answer would be speculation.

The most popular motive was that he was a USA President and they are assassinated at regular intervals to encourage the others.

all ok