Josh

Robert F. Kennedy

If he hadn’t been assassinated in 1968 he might have been president. If he had won the presidential election, the world as we know it might be completely different. This is old news now that the movie Bobby is out, but I think he’s an important part of world history, not just American History.

Background

Born in 1925, he was the younger brother of John F. Kennedy. He served in the Navy, briefly, then went to Harvard and later the University of Virginia Law School. He began his career in government in 1951 working for the Internal Security Division of the Department of Justice, where he investigated Soviet agents. He successfully managed his brother’s 1952 Senate campaign. In 1955, he became the Democratic Chief Counsel and worked with the Senate Labor Rackets Committee where he showed Jimmy Hoffa what was up. In 1959 he began working on John’s Presidential campaign. We all know how that turned out.

In 1960, his brother appointed him Attorney General, making him the 65th. While at this position he crusaded against organized crime (don’t worry, my family was out of the mafia by then [supposedly]), where the number of convictions against organized crime rose 800%. He also began working on what is considered his greatest legacy, Civil Rights.

In 1961 he gave a speech at the University of Georgia expressing the Administration’s commitment to Civil Rights stating:

For on this generation of Americans falls the full burden of proving to the world that we really mean it when we say all men are created equal and are equal before the law. All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don’t. And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity.

To the South, perhaps more than any other section of the country, has been given the opportunity and the challenge and the responsibility of demonstrating America at its greatest - at its full potential of liberty under law.

You may ask, will we enforce the Civil Rights statutes?

The answer is: Yes, we will.

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Nine months after his brother’s assassination in 1963, Robert became a Senator for New York.

My Thoughts

Robert Kennedy’s message of violence, acceptance, and tolerance is as true now as it was in the 60’s. He was an inspirational man who continues to inspire and influence myself, as I’m sure he does to a lot of people.

On April 5th, 1968, he gave a speech about violence in Cleveland, Ohio. In it he stated:

It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.

It seems, to me, that acts of violence, whether it’s a war, a school fight, a school shooting, or encouraging children to fight to learn how to “act on the street”, are seen more and more in these times of ours. I’m no idiot, and I realize that violence has always been, and will always be, around. When my parents were in school, in the 70’s, a kid brought in a few guns and went on a shooting rampage. But in my lifetime at least, it has never been more prevalent.

Robert Kennedy went on, in the same speech, to state:

Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr’s cause has ever been stilled by an assassin’s bullet.

No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.

Whenever any American’s life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.

How many soldiers in Vietnam would have lived if Kennedy had been elected? How many sons, brothers, and fathers would have come home? Would things be different if we held onto the values and ideals that Robert Kennedy so firmly stood for? It’s ironic that his life was taken in an act of violence.

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Categorized as tysk