The Crowd Didn't Know

Our country is in trouble.

We have always had people in society willing to do evil acts and who thrive on cruelty and malice. Trump has been a loser his whole life. He is incapable of introspection, even if he were so inclined. He is always the victim, boo–fucking–hoo ya’ orange putz. He has, however, enabled the section of the population, in whom violence and cruelty lurks, to release their inner “Mr. Hyde”.

The country is living through “1984” in real time. Everything is a lie; the truth is a deep state conspiracy. The internet has been essential to the propagation of misinformation. The country is being torn apart. The world is on edge; is it just saber-rattling or endgame.

The whole world seems uptight right now and as torn apart as it was during that crack–in–time known as 1968.

I just finished reading Chris Matthews’ 2017 book, Bobby Kennedy—A Raging Spirit. A good read.

Bobby was late to enter the 1968 presidential race; officially entering on 16 March. He went on the stump around the country. His platform simple; racial equality, economic justice, and ending the war in Vietnam.

From the book:

Speaking at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana, on April 4—that state’s primary was still a month away—Robert Kennedy held fast to his course of being antiwar while at the same time supporting the cause of a fair draft policy. There he told an audience of five thousand that student deferments discriminated against those who were eligible but couldn’t afford college. The next stop that day was Ball State University in Muncie where a crowd of nine thousand awaited him. “For all the advantages that we have, don’t we have a major responsibility to those that don’t have those advantages?” he questioned.

“You’re placing a great deal of faith in white America,” a black student now questioned him. “Is this faith justified?” Bobby, accepting the challenge, noted first that there were “black extremists who do not like white people and . . . are teaching violence and lawlessness and disorder.” At the same time, he acknowledged that there are also ”white people who say . . . black people are inferior and therefore don’t want to treat them equally.”

Finally he offered hope. “I think the vast majority of the American people want to do the decent and the right thing.”

The legendary John Lewis was part of Bobby’s team and had helped book his next speech in the inner–city Broadway neighborhood of Indianapolis. They were headed out when word reached them that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot in Memphis, Tennessee. He decided to do the speech regardless of the risk.

Bobby addressed the crowd from the back of a flatbed truck; speaking from his heart.

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—the evidence 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, or go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And 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, it'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.

And let's 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.

This speech has always moved me, and I think it reveals why Bobby was so popular; he spoke from his heart and people felt that. His reference to a “member of my family”, rather than invoking the name of his brother, was a way he could make this personal without making it all about himself. And the crowd sensed that.

The next day in Cleveland, Ohio, he addressed the topic of violence in America.

Whenever any American’s life is taken by another American unnecessarily—whether it’s done in the name of the law or in defense of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence—whenever we tear at the fabric of life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.

The campaign would head to Nebraska, then Oregon, before arriving in Los Angeles for the California primary scheduled for 4 June.

John Lewis is quoted as saying,

People treated him like he was some kind of rock star. It was young people. It was blacks, whites, Hispanics just pulling for him.

Before addressing the crowd at the Ambassador hotel on the night of the primary, Bobby told an interviewer,

I have an association with those who are less well off, where perhaps we can accomplish something, bringing the country back together—and that we can start to put into effect, all of us working together—some programs that will have some meaning. If the division continues, we’re going to have nothing but chaos and havoc here in the United States.

While addressing the crowd he would say;

I think we can end the divisions within the United States, whether it’s between blacks and whites, between the poor and the more affluent or between age groups or on the war in Vietnam. We can start to work together. We are a great country, an unselfish country. I intend to make that my basis for running.

Bobby’s speech ended shortly after midnight 5 June. After leaving the stage he tried to short–cut through the kitchen, and, while shaking hands with workers there, was mortally shot by Sirhan Sirhan. Bobby would die 25 hours later.

Senator Robert Francis Kennedy died at 0144 on 6 June 1968, at the age of forty–two.

My brother needed not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.

Bobby is buried in Arlington National Cemetery near his brother Jack. His casket was lowered into its grave at 2334 on 6 June 1968. His brother Ted, the last surviving son delivered the following eulogy:

We loved him as a brother, and as a father, and as a son. From his parents and from his older brothers and sisters, Joe and Kathleen and Jack, he received an inspiration which he passed on to all of us. He gave us strength in time of trouble, wisdom in time of uncertainty, and sharing in time of happiness. He will always be by our side.

Love is not an easy feeling to put into words, nor is loyalty, or trust, or joy. But he was all of these. He loved life completely and he lived it intensely. My brother needed not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.

I met Bobby on the steps of the capitol in the summer of 1966. He had been elected as the junior senator from New York in 1964. My family was walking with our senior senator from the state of Washington, Warren G. Magnuson, up the steps and back to his office when I saw Bobby a few yards away walking down the steps. I said hi Bobby loud enough for him to hear (and piss my dad off) and he changed course to come say hi. Magnuson introduced our family, we shook hands, he tousled my hair, we exchanged pleasantries, and then went our different ways. I was a starry–eyed fanboy who had just met his idol.

If you remember Bobby, and these fateful days, you may have a tear in your eye and feel an emptiness inside you. I know I do. If this all happened before you were born, perhaps this may explain how so many of us felt back then and why the current events are so dire.

Two of the most consequential figures of the time viz. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were killed because they believed in equality.

In just over two months America, indeed the world, lost both of their voices, and the world was forever changed.

Tomorrow will mark the 57^th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.

For me, these eight weeks of the year are always filled with melancholy.

Requiescat in pace dear fellows.

Thanks for reading

Bob