6/11/98

Last week marked the 30th anniversary of the shooting and death of ROBERT FRANCIS KENNEDY. I think it is fair to say that, for many of us, a piece of ourselves died that day and for a lot of people their love of politics and their government died that day.

RFK was not your average politician or officeholder. He was adored, vilified, mobbed and resented. He was someone who truly felt that politics was an honorable profession. He was, in short, an idealist who continually had a hard time functioning in the rough and tumble world of campaigning. Albeit, not nearly as bad as the blood sport of politics today. He was a man of passion, blunt and subjective. In short, he was perfect for his times. Remembering what 1968 was like puts this into context. Although some events happened after his death, you had, from late 1967 to late 1968, the most traumatic non-war related year in American history. The Tet Offensive, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., riots in the streets, the single worse casualty year in Vietnam, the Chicago Convention riots and, finally, the close and divisive election of Richard Nixon over Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace. All of this conspired to make for a very tense feeling amongst Americans in 1968.

Injected into this was the brother of a slain President running for President himself. With a war waging and the divisions it caused, along comes a person that appeared to get all the disenfranchised back into the process. The young, the blacks, the microscopic (at the time) Hispanic, the poor, just to name a few. After getting in late and winning the California primary, which was crucial to his effort to capture the nomination, it appeared that RFK would indeed be the Democratic nominee for President. It appeared that way for all of about one hour. As many of us were waking up on the morning of the 5th, we got the news that he had been shot. He did not die until the 6th, but we all knew it really didn't matter. We had already died with him. What kind of country were we living in where two leaders could be killed in the same year? What kind of country were we living in where the second of a family would be killed while running for the highest office in the land? For someone my age, at the time 17, these were hard questions that begged to be answered. For older Americans, I'm sure, hardened by war and depression, it was just another in a series of jolts that they had come to learn to live with. But for us, for a generation, it was more than we could take. Although I did not take this route, fortunately, many Americans my age decided to drop out, tune out and say to hell with this process called government and politics. If there was not a generation gap before, there certainly was after.

As Bobby lay there, in the arms of Roosevelt Grier and Rafer Johnson, waiting to die, I'm sure that the thoughts of why entered his mind also. He had never flinched from the threat of dying because he felt the cause outweighed the risk. The toll on the country, however, was something he apparently never considered. Although one more near assassination would take place (curiously enough on a right leaning candidate), there was barely any more overt violence. There were no more riots; there were no more large outpourings of spontaneous gatherings for politicians. There were no more scenes where huge numbers of young people gathered to show their support for a political figure. In short, America became numb. The excesses of the '70s were as much a result of 1968 as they were of other events prior thereto.

The story of his times are so vivid to my generation, it is hard to believe that almost half of Americans were born after his death. Although I felt a personal loss (I was in the process of trying to work on his campaign), as did many others, the loss to the country was enormous. A loss not only for what he himself could have meant but the mere fact that he was killed and the effect that had on the psyche of this country. One of the gratifying turn of events this decade is the renewal of interest by young people in the process. Let me leave you with this quote from Bobby when he was campaigning in 1968: "The evolution within the party will depend, possibly, on the extent to which the youth of America are inclined and invited to involve themselves. To the extent that they organize their potential numbers effectively on behalf of candidates and to live with disappointment, defeats and different points of view, these students and young people can become indispensable to the party and instrumental in moving the party in the future."

Bobby, of all people, would have been so disappointed by the youth at that time in their response to his death. The youth of today can create their own legacy. I am inviting you to do just that. Tune in, get involved, register, vote and volunteer to define your future the way you want it to be. If that sounds idealistic, then, how appropriate a note it is to conclude in an article on ROBERT FRANCIS KENNEDY.