In remembrance of Robert F. Kennedy

[Ava]

In remembrance of Robert F. Kennedy, who died on June 6th in 1968.



"The sharpest criticism often goes hand in hand with the deepest idealism and love of country."

"Men without hope, resigned to despair and oppression, do not make revolutions. It is when expectation replaces submission, when despair is touched with the awareness of possibility, that the forces of human desire and the passion for justice are unloosed."

"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."

"Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it." - From his last speech, June 6, 1968



His Statement on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Indianapolis, Indiana
April 4, 1968

I have bad news for you, 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 killed tonight.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.

In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is 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 there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible--you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization--black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another.

Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I 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 go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "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 or lawlessness; but 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 they be black.

So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, 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; we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is 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 who 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.

[hellbound-liberal]

1. My favorite RFK quote:

"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation... It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is thus shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance".

[Kiouni]

7. I loved that speech! n/t

[flvegan]

2. May his son, Bobby Jr pick up that gauntlet and RUN

In remembrance, I look to the future, and I hope he'll do just that.

[SeattleGirl]

3. Thank you, Ava.

I still miss him, even after all these years.

[Greeby]

4. One of the most heartbreaking photos my parents brought back from Washington DC

Was when they went to Arlington and took a shot of the lone cross on the hillside



(This is not their photo, it's from a google search)

:cry:

[jwirr]

10. Yes, I think that simple marker & cross said it all. He was wonderful.

[GainesT1958]

5. Thanks so much AVA...

For this. That makes two things we need to remember today--one a great tragedy, and one the beginning of a great triumph. For this is also the 63rd anniversary of D-Day...June 6, 1944. Ironic that two major events in our nation's history at such opposite ends of the emotional and historical spectrum would occur on the same date.

I am of course way too young to remember D-Day first-hand; for that I needed my parent's memories. But I do remember when Bobby Kennedy was shot, and when he died. It indeed did change history--just how much we'll never know, but definitely for the worse. And it marked another red exclamation point-date in 1968, a year filled with far too many of them--more of them in a single year than perhaps any other year I've been alive thusfar. It was definitely a year that America--and the rest of the world--was glad when it was over; that I remember too.

Thanks for reminding us of this. And of the fact that we can never let go of a dream.

B-)

[EFerrari]

6. I can't read this today, maybe I'll do better tomorrow.

Thank you, Ava

[dogday]

8. I was just a kid when this happened but I knew

something bad had happened to him before they announced it.... A good man had been taken from us...

He left behind a Son who is fighting the good fight... I really admire Robert Kennedy Jr. and I know his Dad would be very proud of him...

[EFerrari]

9. kick

[Garbo 2004]

11. Thank you Ava. n/t

[MikeH]

12. RFK was shot the week before I graduated from high school

1968 was a year of a lot of turmoil, which for me was on top of my own personal issues and unhappiness, as well as personal change. I was definitely not happy my last year of high school. Starting college later that year marked a new and positive change for me (though one which I dreaded beforehand), though it would be many years later that I would fully deal with my personal issues.

I have often wondered what it would have been like if Robert Kennedy had lived. He definitely would have had much to contribute to our country and our society, whether or not he would have become president. His loss was a very definite loss (as were the losses of his brother, JFK, and of Martin Luther King).

Ava, I remember when I was in high school I definitely did not have the maturity and a positive sense of myself to do what you are doing. I had a lot of problems with people in school who were inclined to be mean; I don't think I could have handled the nastiness that you have had to deal with from people opposed to what you are doing, at least not when I was young.

[Davis_X_Machina]

13. Photos taken from the funeral train...

...may be found here.

Will break your heart.

[deutsey]

28. I don't think America will ever fully recover from '68

Something became dislocated with the assassinations.

Seeing these mourners seems to me that they're saying goodbye not just to Bobby, but also to a kind of hope in America's promise that just doesn't seem to exist anymore.

[Straight Shooter]

14. Thank you, Ava. Politicians don't give such eloquent speeches anymore, speeches from the heart.

:cry:

[JeffR]

15. He would be proud of you, Ava

I am too. By the time you're my age, I'll be long dead. It makes me feel better knowing there are voices such as yours to carry on the fight. It's a long haul. This old Southern leftist wishes you well, and thanks you for a nice tribute to a great American.

[Hippo_Tron]

16. Without a doubt the best president we never had

Bobby Kennedy had real courage which was rare for a politician back then and rare now.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

17. Sadly, a martyr for democracy. We've gone down hill ever since.

I doubt we will ever get back on track without,...

I presented my parents with a picture of you in West "BY GOD" Virginia. They cherish it!!!

In remembrance of you, John.

With desperate prayers for our nation. Amen.

[mzmolly]

18. Very nice Ava.

:hi:

[pscot]

19. Wonderful tribute, Ava

Thank you so much. His murder broke my heart. It just sucked all the hope and promise out of politics for me. I felt that America lost its last chance at redemption when Bobby was killed. I have seen nothng since to disabuse me of that belief.

[me b zola]

20. What could have been...

...what was taken from us. We are lesser now because of that loss.

Robert Jr. carries his father's name well.

[WillyT]

21. Thank You Ava... And Here's An RFK Story For Ya...

Link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1365948

Thanks again.

[ConsAreLiars]

22. You can listen to the recording of that speech here, and more at

http://www.angelfire.com/pa4/kennedy/speech.html

It's the fifth one down.

Listen.
Listen to them all.

Our last best hope, murdered.

Listen to what might have been.

(edit to add the obvious: Ava, your work has always been a tribute to RFK and Tom Jefferson and MLK and many more. Keep it up.)

[uppityperson]

23. The end of my childhood, the day he was shot. Innocence, gone.

Why are they killing all the good guys? He was the best of the bunch, the one with brains and a heart, courage and conviction. RIP Bobbie.

[EVDebs]

24. CIA's presence felt in these assassinations...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=260325#260334

and they continue to keep things well covered. I'm amazed now that Vincent Bugliosi now has a book out on the JFK assassination. Let's hope he even mentions the Johannides link to Oswald. We can then discuss the RFK links the media doesn't mention. And then there's the MLK assassination with his constant military surveillance, which was far worse than the FBI's under Hoover.

[TheUnspeakable]

25. don't get your hopes up about bugliosi's book..

i just posted this in another thread

HBO, Playtone plan JFK miniseries
Hanks, Paxton set to produce 'History'
By MICHAEL FLEMING
Hanks




HBO is near a deal with Playtone that will turn Vincent Bugliosi's 1,632-page book "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" into a miniseries.
Ten-parter will debunk long-held conspiracy theories and establish that assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.



great, just great

[EVDebs]

26. They won't mention Joan Mellen's book or the Angleton/Johannides connections to Oswald

you can bet on that. MSM just urning up the volume to keep heat off BFEE still alive when JFK/RFK were whacked. Too bad the internet keeps up with the story they want to kill, or that Posner and others now are backtracking on the CIA (in order to cover their asses)

Celebrated authors demand that the CIA come clean on JFK assassination
Gerald Posner, Norman Mailer and Don DeLillo back lawsuit to open secret files on CIA mystery man tied to Lee Harvey Oswald
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/12/17/joannides/index.html

"In 1963 Joannides served as chief of the CIA's anti-Castro "psychological warfare" operations in Miami. According to declassified CIA records corroborated by interviews, Joannides secretly financed exiled Cuban agents who collected intelligence on Lee Harvey Oswald three months before Kennedy was killed. Fifteen years later, Joannides was called out of retirement by the CIA to serve as the agency's liaison to the House committee looking into Kennedy's assassination. While working with the committee, the spy withheld information about his own actions in 1963 from the congressional investigators he was supposed to be assisting. It wasn't until 2001, 38 years after Kennedy's death, that Joannides' support for the Cuban exiles, who clashed with Oswald and monitored him, came to light."

...thanks to Joan Mellen's unrelenting research and FOIAs, this information IS seeing the light of day.

In John Ehrlichman's Witness to Power book he mentions Nixon's reaction upon finding out that Bobby would run in '68. That reaction tells us all we need to know.

[Cetacea]

27. Beautiful work, Ava.

That first photo speaks volumes. Actually, they all do.

I have no doubts that he would have been elected easily.

Thank you.