As many as you know Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed forty years ago in Memphis, TN. As the country remembers that tragic day, I'm always reminded of Robert Kennedy's impromptu speech that he gave in Indianapolis that day while campaigning in Indiana for the 1968 presidential primary. The speech has always resonated with me...it motivated me to write my senior thesis on Kennedy's Indiana campaign...and...quite frankly...is my favorite speech.
The thing to remember is that the crowd...mainly composed of blacks...had not heard of King's death. Not only did Kennedy take on the responsibility of announcing the tragic news but he took the opportunity to try to make sense of it. He did so in such a powerful way that the crowd completely soaked up what he said. And I don't think that it is any surprise that while dozens of other American cities erupted in violence...Indianapolis was spared of such acts of violence largely do to the eloquence of Kennedy's speech.
Even forty years later it is hard to make sense that both King and Kennedy both lost their lives--to acts of violence-- in the spring of 1968. I definitely think this county is better off than it was forty years ago but to think that King's Dream or Kennedy's idealism have to come to the light of the day is unfortunately not reality. While we are closer...we aren't there. But we are on the right path. Without those two this county would not be as far along on the path to racial harmony as we are now.
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