Thank you John and Robert Kennedy...

[Contrary1]

I remember the day John Kennedy died. 1963...I was in the 7th grade at a Catholic school. The nuns cried...we all did. But I really wasn't into politics, The first Catholic president had died, and so I was sad.

I was a junior in high school in 1968. Older friends were going to Viet Nam. One came back without an eye. Another came back in a box. Suddenly, I became aware of the grown up world around me.

I was torn between Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy. Both were good men. But, I was young...and I ended up supporting the name I was familiar with. Kennedy. Looking back, I think either one would have done a good job.

I campaigned for Bobby, even though I wasn't old enough to vote. Back then, it was a simpler time. The assassination of JFK was the work of a single lunatic. We had every reason to hope for a bright future.

The first week of April, 1968, Bobby Kennedy was going to be at a nearby shopping center. My friend, Stella and I got there early to make sure we were in the front row. The loudspeaker broadcast that we were not to go beyond the tape. The Secret Service were there to assure that. But, I was young. And rules didn't mean much to me. And so, when I saw the white convertible coming up the hill, I broke through the yellow tape and ran down to greet him. I got to shake the hand of Robert F. Kennedy. A day later, I got within 10 feet of his hotel room before I was stopped.

Two days later, Martin Luther King JR. was assassinated. Robert Kennedy calmed the people in Indianapolis, and the country with these words:

"Ladies and Gentlemen - I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening. Because...

I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

For those of you who are black - considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible - you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization - black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, yeah that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love - a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past. And we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people. Thank you very much."

I have bumper stickers, posters and campaign buttons from 1968 in my attic. I have a handwritten letter from Ted Kennedy thanking me for my support of his brother.

And, I have a hole in my heart from 1968...yet, I hope. God bless you John and Robert Kennedy for that. It is because of you that I still have hope.

[klebean]

1. thank you for Bobby's words

I feel hope rising and the tears come to my eyes.
I see injustice and hot tears of anger burst from my eyes.
I feel sad for our loss of the great ones and with my eyes -
I furtively seek for those who can move a nation into hope,
and I cry in fear that they will not survive.

But, I feel hope rising...

This is the emotional roller coaster that we who lived through these horrible assassinations, ride.

[stlsaxman]

2. A beautiful post- Thank you so, so much.

"It is because of you that I still have hope." Same here.

"Hope is unreasonable." -Robert Fripp. It took me a while to understand that aphorism. In view of a world falling apart around us and yet flying in the face of all reason- there is Hope.

Bobby ALWAYS gave me Hope. Just seeing a picture of him restored my faith in human nature.

Anyone who could find the words to comfort a crowd of people stunned by the news that one of their leaders had just been slain, is truly a Holy Man. Thank you for the transcript of that beautiful speech.

I can't wait to see the movie.

[La_Fourmi_Rouge]

3. A great extemporaneous speech.

It rates right up there with Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream".

[Swede]

4. Good post,my friend.

nt

[otherlander]

5. "I either would have been

a juvenile delinquent or a revolutionary."

Here we are today stuck in a war over a lie, freedoms being taken away, jobs being outsourced, and leaders trying to drag us further and further into the mess. And then you see men like them, who gave so much hope to America, who could have changed the world if they hadn't been murdered, and who were murdered because they did change the world. I take back what I said about JFK being a hypocrite. He helped the civil rights movement, he started the Peace Corps. He did some stupid things, too, but he did better than I'd expect from someone who grew up sheltered by so much money.

[rudeboy666]

6. dead white elites n/t

[La_Fourmi_Rouge]

7. ignorant young boys n/t

[Gloria]

8. The memories are so painful......

Tucked away in my memorabilia is my McCarthy bumpersticker....but it's Bobby's death that is still fresh...