Early evening, April 4th...
by James D Boys
[ politics | opinion - february 03 ]
In this age of garbled syntax and dumbed down politics, it is perhaps timely to recall that there was a time, not so long ago, when politics remained the art of the possible, when politicians were taken seriously and when honesty and compassion were not sneered or scoffed at. Thirty-five years ago, such an occasion occurred in the most unlikely of places: Indianapolis, Indiana. In this city, better known for its racetrack than for its race relations, one of the most eloquent speeches on love and compassion was delivered in the face of a national tragedy.
On April 4, 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr, was shot by a sniper while standing on a balcony outside his second-story room at the Motel Lorraine in Memphis, Tennessee. At the time of the shooting, Senator Robert F Kennedy, younger brother of the slain president, was addressing a crowd of 11,000 at Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana. As a candidate for the Presidential election that year, Kennedy spoke of ending the war in Vietnam, demanded a higher minimum wage and called for greater understanding between the races. In a brief question and answer session he expressed his belief that "the vast majority of white people have good intentions towards minorities." [1]
As he prepared for a short flight to Indianapolis, he was advised that King had been shot. To Kennedy this was just the latest violent reminder of why he was running for the highest office in the land. King had gone to Memphis to support the claims of striking garbage workers for union recognition and better working conditions. On the night of April 3, King delivered his most poignant sermon; "I've been to the mountaintop. I've seen the glory, I may not get there with you, but I want you to know that we as a people will get to the Promised Land." [2] Less than twenty-four hours later, King lay dead in the all-black section of Memphis.
On the flight to Indianapolis, Kennedy remarked, "You know, it grieves me... that I told this kid and then walk out and find that some white man has just shot their spiritual leader." [3] When they arrived at their destination, their worst fears were confirmed: King had been assassinated. No doubt recalling his brother and the fate that had been delivered upon him, RFK "recoiled when he heard the news, as though he had been struck by the bullet that took King's life." [4]
The immediate dilemma was whether to go ahead with the rally that had been arranged for Indianapolis's black ghetto. Many of his advisers thought the risk too great and even his wife pleaded for him to cancel his appearance, fearing that the crowd could turn their anger on RFK. The local police chief, fearing a race riot, advised Kennedy to stay out of he ghetto, maintaining that he would not be held responsible if RFK went ahead with the speech. "When they hear the news, they'll riot," [5] RFK was advised. Kennedy did not hesitate; he went anyway, entering the downtown slums unprotected, the police escort having "peeled off as he entered the ghetto." [6]
As night fell, word of King's death had still not reached the 2,000 people who had gathered in the raw night to listen to Kennedy speak. "What am I going to say?" [7] he repeatedly asked his aides as they drove into the ghetto. RFK, sombre and gaunt in his brother's old black overcoat, mounted a flatbed truck, where he ignored the speech he had written for the event. He would find the words he was looking for as he spoke "out of aching memory...out of the depth of his heart and hope" [8] and broke the news to the crowd.
"I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news 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 was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee." [9] The gathered crowed reacted with horror as Kennedy delivered the dreadful news. Kennedy pressed on in the tense atmosphere, unafraid of addressing the underlying issue of race and injustice. "For those of you who are black... you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge... Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love." [10]
Kennedy brought to the moment not just a shared cause but a shared sentiment of loss; "For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also 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." [11] This reference to the loss of a family member was his only public reference to what he would forever refer to as "the events of late 1963." [12]
Until this point, Kennedy's campaign had been widely seen as opportunistic and self-serving. Some even accused him of exploiting the memory of his brother. But on that bleak, windy evening in Indianapolis, that changed, as he spoke extemporaneously from the depths of his despair, using words that could never be mistaken for his brother's. "My favourite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: "Even 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." [13]
The eloquence with which his late brother had spoken of issues of war and peace, were utilised to define a far greater image of America. "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." [14]
As a former Attorney General of the United States, Kennedy realised the potential for disaster that evening as the news quickly spread across the United States. Again, he did not shrink from addressing this head on. "I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King... 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." [15]
Then, in a passage that would prove to be all too prophetic, he declared, "We've had difficult times in the past. And we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder." [16] Pain was etched on his face as he urged the crowd to heed again the words of ancient philosophers, which most would never have heard of; "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." [17]
As word of King's assassination spread, violence erupted across America. A wave of rioting struck 125 cities in 29 states. Forty-six were killed, 2, 600 injured, 21,000 arrested and damage to property estimated at $50 million. [18] In Chicago, Mayor Daley ordered police to "shoot to kill" [19] arsonists; In Washington DC bullets and bombs exploded two blocks from the White House and everywhere, the National Guard and the Army were on the streets, as President Johnson dispatched 100,000 federal troops to contain the riots.
Across America the cities burned, but in Indianapolis, standing on a lorry in a car park, speaking calmly of America's choice between hatred and compassion, Robert Kennedy convinced his audience to turn away from violence. "He spoke from personal grief, from the bitter experience of his own family. For the first time since launching his campaign, he spoke like a man worthy and truly ready to be president." [20] In his decision to defy both the political establishment and conventional wisdom, Kennedy had finally taken what Thomas Hobbes once called the "great leap in the dark." [21]
In the coming months, with the United States consumed with riots, arsons and racial fury, Kennedy alone remained a figure of common hope, becoming "the last white politician who was trusted by black people." [22] Kennedy campaign aide John Lewis spoke for the black community: "After the funeral of Dr. King, I felt I had lost a friend, a big brother, a colleague. Somehow I said to myself, 'Well, at least we still have Bobby Kennedy.'" [23] That feeling of optimism would last for just another two months, for, as Robert F Kennedy became a lightning rod for one dissatisfied group after another, he was himself assassinated on June 5, 1968.
Twenty-four hours after the address in Indianapolis, Robert Kennedy declared, "violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul." [24] Thirty-five years later, America, indeed the world, still waits such a cleansing.
Postscript
The title of this piece is a reference to a factually incorrect line in the U2 song, 'Pride'. Clearly written with Martin Luther King in mind, it contains the lines, "Early morning, April 4, a shot rings out in the Memphis sky." In fact, King was shot in the early evening, Memphis time, and certainly very late in the evening Dublin time.
Notes
1 C David Heymann, RFK: A candid biography of Robert F Kennedy, New York: Dutton Books, 1998, 461. [Back]
2 William Chafe, The Unfinished Journey, America since World War II, Third Edition, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, 367 [Back]
3 Arthur M Schlesinger, Jr. Robert Kennedy and his times, London: Andre Deutsch, 1978, 874 [Back]
4 C David Heymann, RFK: A candid biography of Robert F Kennedy, New York: Dutton Books, 1998, 461. [Back]
5 C David Heymann, RFK: A candid biography of Robert F Kennedy, New York: Dutton Books, 1998, 461. [Back]
6 Evan Thomas, Robert Kennedy, His Life, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000, 366 [Back]
7 Christopher Matthews, Kennedy and Nixon: The Rivalry that shaped post-war America, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996, 263. [Back]
8 Arthur M Schlesinger, Jr. Robert Kennedy and his times, London: Andre Deutsch, 1978, 874 [Back]
9 Senator Robert F Kennedy, 'Statement on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr' Indianapolis, Indiana, April 4, 1968, www.jfklibrary.org/r040468.htm [Back]
10 Senator Robert F Kennedy, 'Statement on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr' Indianapolis, Indiana, April 4, 1968, www.jfklibrary.org/r040468.htm [Back]
11 Senator Robert F Kennedy, 'Statement on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr' Indianapolis, Indiana, April 4, 1968, www.jfklibrary.org/r040468.htm [Back]
12 12 Christopher Matthews, Kennedy and Nixon: The Rivalry that shaped post-war America, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996, 263. [Back]
13 Senator Robert F Kennedy, 'Statement on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr' Indianapolis, Indiana, April 4, 1968, www.jfklibrary.org/r040468.htm [Back]
14 Senator Robert F Kennedy, 'Statement on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr' Indianapolis, Indiana, April 4, 1968, www.jfklibrary.org/r040468.htm [Back]
15 Senator Robert F Kennedy, 'Statement on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr' Indianapolis, Indiana, April 4, 1968, www.jfklibrary.org/r040468.htm [Back]
16 Senator Robert F Kennedy, 'Statement on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr' Indianapolis, Indiana, April 4, 1968, www.jfklibrary.org/r040468.htm [Back]
17 Senator Robert F Kennedy, 'Statement on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr' Indianapolis, Indiana, April 4, 1968, www.jfklibrary.org/r040468.htm [Back]
18 Jonathan Aitkin, Nixon: A Life, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993, 351 [Back]
19 19 William Chafe, The Unfinished Journey, America since World War II, Third Edition, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, 367 [Back]
20 Simon Tisdall, 'The Kennedy They Really Miss', The Guardian, June 4, 1993, 2. http://web.lexis-nexis.com/professional/form?_index=
pro_en.html&_lang=en&ut=3221810842 [Back]
21 Simon Tisdall, 'The Kennedy They Really Miss', The Guardian, June 4, 1993, 2. http://web.lexis-nexis.com/professional/form?_index=
pro_en.html&_lang=en&ut=3221810842 [Back]
22 Simon Tisdall, 'The Kennedy They Really Miss', The Guardian, June 4, 1993, 2. http://web.lexis-nexis.com/professional/form?_index=
pro_en.html&_lang=en&ut=3221810842 [Back]
23 Jeff Shesol, Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy and the Feud that Defined a Decade, New York: Norton Books, 1997, 447 [Back]
24 William Chafe, The Unfinished Journey, America since World War II, Third Edition, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, 367 [Back]
