RFK on MLK

[Gentle Giant]

aka, when leaders walked the earth.

A legacy of freedom
By Kevin Cullen, Globe Columnist | April 3, 2008

Tomorrow will be 40 years, 40 years to the day, that Bobby Kennedy climbed some steps to a platform in Indianapolis.

Kennedy was running for president, and he was in Indiana looking for votes. But as he looked out over a sea of black faces, the stump speech was in his pocket, and the words he spoke came from some place much deeper.

Few in the crowd knew that Martin Luther King Jr. had just been shot in Memphis. Kennedy had only found out when he got off the plane in Indianapolis. The police advised him against making the appearance, in a poor black neighborhood, fearing that news of King's assassination would trigger violence. But Kennedy climbed onto the platform and broke the news.

There was a sharp intake of breath, and then the crowd fell silent. And in that void, Bobby Kennedy spoke, as fine and as important and as dignified a speech as has ever been given by any politician anywhere. If you've never heard it, click here to listen to it now.

His plea for calm and restraint, as he reminded those tempted to lash out violently that his brother had also been killed by a white man, is raw and real and achingly poignant.

Some cities burned 40 years ago. Indianapolis did not. If James Brown's concert at the Garden spared Boston the fate of so many other cities, Bobby Kennedy's speech surely spared Indianapolis.

John Seigenthaler, the reporter who became Kennedy's aide when he was attorney general, played that speech over the PA system at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library a couple of weeks ago, when Bobby's old friends gathered on Dorchester Bay to remember his campaign. And, listening to it, what was most striking was its sparse, simple majesty.

Ethel Kennedy, Bobby's widow, was there, listening to the tape. So was his friend, Rafer Johnson, who at 72 still looks as if he could complete a decathlon. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Bobby and Ethel's oldest child, remarked on how often her dad's name comes up in the current presidential campaign.

"Many people are referring to him, quoting him, claiming his legacy," she said. "Disputes are rampant. And I'm not just talking about my family."

For those of you keeping score at home: Kathleen is with Hillary, while her uncle Ted and cousin Caroline are working for Obama. As Townsend sees it, the disputes over who is most like Bobby Kennedy mean something. "His legacy lives," she said. "It matters."

Maybe it lives and matters because, unlike so many politicians today, Bobby Kennedy appealed to people's best instincts, as he did that day in Indianapolis. Maybe it lives and matters because he told hard truths. He told his fellow liberals they were too often more interested in being seen as being right than in passing laws that made things better. He told conservative Southern governors who had been his allies that segregation had to end. He told black people, seething over King's assassination, that they could be filled with a desire for revenge or they could follow King's example.

History repeats itself. It's 40 years later, and we're in a war that seems as divisive and as unwinnable as Vietnam was when Bobby Kennedy ran to end it. Except those who most insisted on this current war want someone else's kids to fight it. If there were a draft right now, there would be people on the street, just as in 1968, because the truth of the matter is that 2008 is 1968, without a draft.

When it was all over that Sunday afternoon, the panel discussions, the speeches, Ted Kennedy choked up, talking about his brother. Ethel Kennedy looked around and said, almost wistfully, "It's great that Bobby had such friends."

People were saying their goodbyes, and an old woman bent down and asked one of Bobby Kennedy's granddaughters what her name is. Ten-year-old Saoirse Hill told her, but the woman looked back with incomprehension. Saoirse's name is Gaelic and it regularly provokes questions.

"It means freedom," Saoirse said.

[Gary Sisco]

If there were a draft now there would have been no wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.

People in the streets or not, the war is also more unpopular than Vietnam was. There was never a time during Vietnam where opposition was as wide or as deep in the citizenry as it is over Iraq. People in the streets isn't necessarily a measure of anything but people in the streets. With this war, the unpopularity is more like, and more on a scale with, Korea, which was hugely unpopular, and also, again as in today, the population was done with the war long before it ended.

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

RFK's great Indianapolis speech ended with him quoting Aeschylus: "... in our despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

[Gary Sisco]

I'm still waiting, then, for the wisdom part.

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

He was trying to rally people's spirits in a time of despair. Then they shot him, too.

[jesus marion joseph]

Pretty powerful speech, especially given the context. Hard to imagine any current political figures who could have done the same.

[rollhead]

"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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gigsZ...eature=related

[john williams]

It was RFK as Attorney General who initiated an illegal counter-intelligence effort against King through Hoover and the FBI. RFK was hysterical about communism. There are conflicting views that RFK may have tried to stop the "investigation" later but shouldn't have unleashed the hounds in the first place. Here's an FBI document urging King to commit suicide just prior to accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. Nice.


http://www.oilempire.us/graphics/mlksuicideletter.gif
Another interesting study showing RFK's complicity in the victimisation of King:
http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointe...reportIIIb.htm

Sorry but that speech looks a little hypocritical to me.

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by jesus marion joseph

Pretty powerful speech, especially given the context. Hard to imagine any current political figures who could have done the same.

Not to mention it was completely off the cuff, quoting ancient verses and all.

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by john williams

It was RFK as Attorney General who initiated an illegal counter-intelligence effort against King through Hoover and the FBI. RFK was hysterical about communism. There are conflicting views that RFK may have tried to stop the "investigation" later but shouldn't have unleashed the hounds in the first place. Here's an FBI document urging King to commit suicide just prior to accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. Nice.

Sorry but that speech looks a little hypocritical to me.

Yeah, whatever.

[Scott Dolan]

I have to agree with John on this one.

[Gentle Giant]

Long but compelling and shows the complexities of the man and his times.

Transcript: American Experience: RFK

[Gary Sisco]

Originally Posted by Squaredancecalling Steve

He was trying to rally people's spirits in a time of despair. Then they shot him, too.

Who's "they"?

[tippy]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Who's "they"?

People. Shooters. People who kill people.

[Gary Sisco]

Oh. I thought it was a "he" who shot RFK.

[Scott Dolan]

Oh sure, and Oswald acted alone too...

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Oh. I thought it was a "he" who shot RFK.

Actually, I recently heard that there's a second shooter theory in the RFK murder, too.

[Jeffrey Wozniak]

Jimmy Hoffa?

[tippy]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

Actually, I recently heard that there's a second shooter theory in the RFK murder, too.

I heard that too.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

Actually, I recently heard that there's a second shooter theory in the RFK murder, too.

Sirhan and Sirhan.

[Scott Dolan]

And their other brother Sirhan...

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

And their other brother Sirhan...

I wish we could wake up and find that it was all a dream.

Actually, I'd be happy just to wake up with Suzanne Pleshette.

When she was alive, of course.

Never mind.

[jesus marion joseph]

Originally Posted by tippy

People. Shooters. People who kill people.

Isn't that a Bachrach song?

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

I wish we could wake up and find that it was all a dream.

Actually, I'd be happy just to wake up with Suzanne Pleshette.

When she was alive, of course.

Never mind.

Greatest series finale of all time...

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by jesus marion joseph

Isn't that a Bachrach song?

Hahahahaha......

[tippy]

Originally Posted by john williams

It was RFK as Attorney General who initiated an illegal counter-intelligence effort against King through Hoover and the FBI. RFK was hysterical about communism. There are conflicting views that RFK may have tried to stop the "investigation" later but shouldn't have unleashed the hounds in the first place. Here's an FBI document urging King to commit suicide just prior to accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. Nice.


http://www.oilempire.us/graphics/mlksuicideletter.gif
Another interesting study showing RFK's complicity in the victimisation of King:
http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointe...reportIIIb.htm

Sorry but that speech looks a little hypocritical to me.

Is that true that the FBI sent MLK a letter telling him to commit suicide?

[Gary Sisco]

They did all kinds of crazy stuff to people, Tippy. Hoover was a crackpot.

[jesus marion joseph]

I wanna see what was redacted.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

I'm going to go out a limb here because I am not a historian, especially the Civil Rights era, but isn't the Kennedys' support of Civil Rights often overstated?

Correct me if I'm wrong.

As much as Johnson is despised for his role in the Viet Nam war, it took him, a Southerner, to push through the Civil Rights laws of the '60s. Sort of like Nixon going to China.

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by Darryl G. Thomas

I'm going to go out a limb here because I am not a historian, especially the Civil Rights era, but isn't the Kennedys' support of Civil Rights often overstated?

Correct me if I'm wrong.

As much as Johnson is despised for his role in the Viet Nam war, it took him, a Southerner, to push through the Civil Rights laws of the '60s. Sort of like Nixon going to China.

The Kennedys believed in equal rights but did not initially believe it was something advantageous for them to try to legislate. Not dissimilar to Lincoln, who was only able to Constitutionally act against slavery by invoking his war powers and introducing it as a military necessity. Otherwise, there was no way he could take action against local interests. In Kennedy's case, it's not that it was beyond his power to act, but it was not deemed a good use of political capital, given the attitudes of southern legislators and his more pressing agenda items.

John Lewis, who knows, has written about how the Kennedys, Bobby in particular, were educated in the dire need for civil rights legislation, not only by watching the horrors on TV but also in meeting with leaders of the movement such as Lewis, King, and Philip Randolph. JFK's famous televised speech discussing his decision to introduce such legislation marked the first time a US president had spoken in public on the issue. Bobby's deployment of US Marshals and troops into Mississippi so that James Meredith could register at Ole Miss was also historic.

LBJ, though a southerner, also supported civil rights; however, the chief reason why he is credited with the legislation's passage is that JFK was killed, the tragedy of which softened the more conservative voices in Congress.