There have been difficult times for America lately.
The deaths of two young black men in Ferguson and in Staten Island was followed by the revenge murder of two NYPD policemen in Brooklyn.
But there have been difficult times in America before and good men who tried to lead the way out of them.
In 1968, Sen Robert F. Kennedy was scheduled to address a mainly black crowd in a poor section of Indianapolis. Martin Luther King had just been murdered and the city’s police chief warned Kennedy not to go.
In fact, once inside the neighborhood, his police escort left him.
Kennedy asked an aide: “Do they know about Martin Luther King?”
They didn’t, and it was left to Kennedy to tell them, from the back of a flatbed truck.
This is what happened:
“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.”
Indianapolis was one of the few cities in America that did not explode into violence that night.
Two months later Kennedy himself was assassinated. But perhaps we should all take inspiration from his spirit in difficult times.
Thank you, Colin. I’ve lived in the Indianapolis area for 22 years now, and have been proud since we moved here of the city’s reaction that day. Bobby Kennedy and his speech must be given a lot of credit for that. But also in today’s times, when areas in the US were going crazy when the Ferguson verdict came down, Indianapolis had orderly protests and the beginnings of deep dialogue, but no violence. We do have problems that need addressing, but I like to think the measured reaction was because of the basic sensibilities of people in Indianapolis as well as a carried-over residue of the night Martin Luther King was assassinated. I, too, hope Bobby Kennedy’s message spreads throughout the world. Thanks, again.