"Remembering Robert F. Kennedy . . . I can still see & hear him . . . Do you?"
By, Jay H. Berman
Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968).
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... "I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?"
Robert F. Kennedy
It had been less than five years since President Kennedy was gunned down that tragic day in Dallas, Texas. We could not possibly have known that a third man whose voice resonated with peoples far and wide was likewise to fall victim to the gunfire of an assassin. On April 4, 1968, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. took his final breath, and it had been Robert Kennedy among other prominent leaders who'd sought to quell what became ferocious race riots.
Tired, but still intense in the last days before the Oregon primary, Robert Kennedy spoke from the platform of a campaign train.
Bobby, as he was affectionately called by his most ardent supporters, spoke to an enraged and distraught crowd on the night of Dr. King's untimely death. Riots did break out in no less than 60 cities across America the night Dr. King was violently taken from us, but not in Indianapolis; where Robert Kennedy beseeched it's citizens to refrain from the violence that birthed vicious storms from coast to coast.
A man who had previously carried with him the reputation of being a ruthless, hard-as-nails political infighter, Robert F. Kennedy morphed into a champion of the people.
I often find it so incongruously paradoxical that he and future President Richard M. Nixon once shared the same determination. The two men tied as supporters of Senator Joe McCarthy of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Robert Kennedy left his post with Sen. McCarthy to run his older brother Jacks' successful campaign against then Vice-Pres. Nixon for the Presidency of the United States.
Pres. Kennedy appointed the younger brother Attorney General for the incoming administration; Robert Kennedy may have been one the most effective men to ever have held that post. Following the death of JFK in 1963, newly sworn-in Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson reportedly asked Bobby to stay on in the job he so ably filled and remain a part of the Johnson cabinet. He did so for a while, eventually succumbing to a combination of personal grief and antipathy for Pres. Johnson.
With combat in Vietnam raging on and the death toll ever increasing, race-relations a continuing divisive and horribly ugly stain, and a nation at war with itself at home as it was abroad, now N.Y. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy grew in stature and earned the designation - icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Democratic Party.
Kennedy became a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 1968 election.
Although he had been part of the American political scene since 1951, Robert Kennedy in 1968 was clearly not the same man once viewed by many in acrimonious terms. That year, for me personally, marked the first Presidential campaign I'd actively participated in. I watched in awe as Robert F. Kennedy "found his voice" - although it hadn't begun well.
His campaign got off to a rocky start, Sen. Kennedy unfamiliar and seemingly ill at ease with the spotlight. But, I watched his sense of purpose grow as the crowds following him surged with excitement and energy. The size of his following of supporters seemed to expand every day and emotions began to run high. He could win, and we knew it.
Far more important than electoral victory was a newfound confidence that exuded from the candidate and what became a throng of millions. Not only could he win, he could repair the unholy damage to our nation that had occurred in the previous four years. Bobby was our guy, and he seemed to embody beneath that sheepish grin, the integrity and moral fortitude the nation so desperately needed in its chief executive . . . then . . .
. . . "Tears poured forth, shrieks of incredulity rang out, disbelief and shock turned to uncontrollable sobbing" as human hearts felt human destiny once more dismantled from a higher purpose. First Dallas, then Memphis, and now Los Angeles, those of us who were there found it wholly unfathomable!
A song was written as both an ode and eulogy to Pres. Kennedy, Dr. King, and Robert F. Kennedy. Today, when I hear it I weep, reliving the nightmare of their collective and all too tragic departure from those who'd dearly loved them; and we who unfailingly believed in them.
Together, likened as a triumvirate, they'd represented the definition
of America at it's vey best. Never to be forgotten, not today, nor ever!
-"I'd like to thank buzzfeed.com for providing the platform allowing me to speak with you today."
Sources:
•The Los Angeles Times
•The N.Y. Times
•The N.Y. Daily News
•The Washington Times
•The Associated Press
•Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights
•Kennedy–King College
•Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1978).
-Jay is on twitter @BermanJ1
Currently, he is an Assoc. Editor & Feature Political Columnist for http://www.ronrambles.com
Jay is a freelance author & editor whose work has appeared on the PBS website, the Editorial pages of the Miami Herald, BuzzFeed and in Chicken Soup for the Soul. Previously, Mr. Berman was a staffer at Time Magazine and the Broward Edition of the Miami Herald, in addition to serving as Editor-In-Chief & Board Member for the ptsd-alliance.org
His current projects include a historical novel about Vietnam, as seen through the eyes of the Vietnamese people.
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