America Diverted: The Loss of Sen. Robert F Kennedy... June 5, 6 1968...

[electric_blue68]

Last edited Fri Jun 6, 2025, 10:31 PM - Edit history (1)

For our younger DU'rs 50yrs old or younger in particular. I'm sure some of you are familiar with this.

Sen Kennedy was considered tough. He was involved in Joe McCarthy 's hearings (HUAC - House of Unamerican Activities); earlier on.
Later he served as Attorney General of the USA under his brother's JFK administration.

According to a biography he was actually a gentle, and empathetic child. But his father hated that. So he toughened himself. Even by playing football.

But after his brother's assassination something began to change. It actually might have started reemerging earlier on while going around the country on President Kennedy's behest.
Poignant photos, story of him in the Mississippi Delta trying to interact w a listless, hungry child. Deeply upsetting experience for him.

At some point he had a meeting with well know Black writers, actors, activists. They really laid down the issues to him. [This was a documentary drama I saw on TV]

He stayed on as AG for a while after LBJ became President. Eventually , he keft, and later he ran, and won the Senate seat for NYS.

So he announced he was running for President which upset the followers of Eugene McCarthy the Peace candidate. He visited and campaigned in Black neighborhoods, in some Native American areas, met up with Ceasar Chavez's farm workers, met with white working class people, had famous people supporting him.

I can remember my mom who'd probably listened to or watched some of the ( and hated) Joseph McCarthy Anti-Communist hearings that ran roughshod over many innocent people; saying to me after now listening to Bobby campaigning. The empathy he now brought forth. "He's changed", she emphatically said to me. I was only 15.

While I later on I wasn't completely assured about his public, and private partnering he proposed instead of just FDR type programs... the empathy he brought, the spanning of disparate groups togther was powerful.

And I'm sure he would have gotten a schooling from feminist groups (I consider myself a feminist, so that would have been something further on).

But he could have brought so much to America if he had become President. Or been around even if not. Or maybe had won in 1972.

If you've never seen footage, or the actual film of his funeral train from NYC to DC you'd see all the various people lining the route who had hope kindles in them by his words, and actions.

Still I was devastated, as many were. Still brings sadness on this anniversary.

I truly believe we were diverted from a better America now, because of losing him back then.

[Ferryboat]

1. I was 11 at the time

Hard to belive now, but the news networks really brought it home at the time. All the violence from the war, civil rights and college protests.

It really was an inflection point. It began to get darker.

[electric_blue68]

3. Ty. Yes it was an inflection point....

My sister was 11, too.

She watched the funeral train with my mom. We had a second TV which I was watching alone in another room because I had to study for the big yearly State wide test. I was not happy having to divide my attention.

[SheltieLover]

2. ...

[electric_blue68]

4. The C,S,N&Y song "Long Time Gone" was written the night Sen RFK was shot in reaction, and all the efforts at change

Crosby wrote it. He was still upset about JFK's assassination, and then this was just too much. Stephen Stills helped bring it as a song to fruition.

"Speak out against the madness
Speak your mind, yeah
That is, if you still can and if you still dare
Why don't you? Yeah
But don't, no, don't (get yourself elected)
I said don't, yeah
I said don't, yeah
If you do, you had better cut your hair, yeah

And it appears to be a long
Appears to be a long
Appears to be a long
Such a long time
Such a long time before the dawn"

[elocs]

5. Yes, dragging RFK through a crowded kitchen. What could go wrong with that?

I wonder now, and by now I mean just "now"...why would Sirhan know or believe that RFK would come that way? I'm sure there must be an answer that I just haven't heard.

[electric_blue68]

7. Yep. I have my "wonderings".

[Boomerproud]

6. Our nation changed that day in ways no one could imagine at the time

I was 12 and deeply affected by it.