CDCAN REPORT 125-2008

DISABILITY RIGHTS NEWS REPORT

California Disability Community Action Network

Advocacy Without Borders: One Community

REPORT #125-2008 - JUNE 5, 2008 - THURSDAY

REPLY TO: MARTY OMOTO

martyomoto@rcip.com website: www.cdcan.us

Remembering Harriet McBryde Johnson

ASSASSINATION 40 YEARS TODAY

ROBERT F. KENNEDY: AMERICA REFLECTS ON HIS 1968 CAMPAIGN AND MESSAGE OF HOPE & RECONCILIATION

“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation… It is from numerous diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” - Robert F. Kennedy

Photo of Robert Kennedy campaigning in Sacramento for president March 1968

SACRAMENTO (CDCAN) - In the midst of a history making presidential campaign in 2008, many Americans will pause and reflect today and tomorrow, marking the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, after his triumph in the California presidential primary at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

Kennedy was shot just minutes after midnight on June 5, and died just after 1 AM on June 6th - barely two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis and four and half years after the murder of his brother, President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Kennedy was only 42 years old when he died in the early hours of June 6th. [pictured left campaigning in Sacramento to a frenzied crowd, March 1968 just a few days after he announced his candidacy],

The loss of two remarkable national leaders to violence in a time span of two months seems unbelievable now, 40 years later. And both the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and King occurred just a few years after President John F. Kennedy was killed, murders of civil rights leader Medgar Evers and others, and combined with escalating fighting and deaths in Vietnam, riots in April and in the summer in many American cities and at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, traumatized the nation in ways that perhaps it has never recovered from. Photo of RFK Campaigning 1968

Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign brought together an unlikely coalition of young people, African Americans, Latinos, Asians, blue collar white workers and families in a string of primary victories, in Indiana and Nebraska, and Washington, DC and one stunning defeat in Oregon by Sen. Eugene McCarthy and then a comeback victory a week later in the California and South Dakota presidential primaries.

Current Assemblymember Mervyn Dymally - who was a a member of the State Assembly back then in 1968 (before serving as Lt. Governor, then later as a member of Congress, then back to the Assembly), was an early supporter of Kennedy, as was fellow Assemblymember Willie Brown. There is a photo of RFK speaking to a crowd of largely African Americans in Watts, with Dymally standing just below Kennedy.

Kennedy, if he had lived, faced a difficult challenge after the California primary, to overcome the delegate lead of then Vice President Hubert Humphrey for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination, who entered the race too late to run in any of the primaries. Some historians say he would not have won. But many other historians believe that RFK would have prevailed and would have won the nomination and defeated Richard Nixon the following November.

His assassination guaranteed that we would never know.

MARTY OMOTO REMEMBRANCE OF JUNE 1968:

I was young kid working as a volunteer in the Kennedy campaign in my hometown of Monterey walking precincts, and doing errands at the local headquarters and passing out campaign flyers at school and around the neighborhoods.

But working in the RFK campaign even at that level - like those who worked in the campaign for Sen. Eugene McCarthy, seemed like something special - as if one was a part of a crusade for hope, for peace and an end to the war in Vietnam. . It seemed that Robert Kennedy was the only man in the America who could bring blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, the poor - everyone - together

There was a sense of real hope about Bobby Kennedy's candidacy, and what it meant to us, especially in minority communities, many who felt powerless, shut out and isolated. .

It was a feeling that seemed even more true after the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr, with the outbreak of violence in scores of American cities following his death - the worst in American history, and the continuing war in Vietnam that seemed to slide further to disaster. The country - and the world - seemed to be in chaos.

On that fateful night of the California primary election on June 4, some 40 years ago now, volunteers like me (even though I was a kid - there were several other under aged people there too) and other supporters gathered at the local campaign headquarters to celebrate what we hoped would be a victory. After Bobby Kennedy's defeat in Oregon just one week earlier, it was no longer a sure thing that he would win in California - at least not to us in the room. The fear of that - of losing - seemed at the time an even greater fear than losing him to violence. Perhaps it was because we were younger - and somehow thought him invulnerable.

And while the possibility of another Kennedy assassination was on people's minds after JFK's death, and after King's murder, no one thought that this night, June 4, 1968, would end in another unbelievable act of violence and loss.

Now, close to midnight and into the early hour of June 5th, it was clear he won, and all of us - including the younger volunteers, even though we were under aged, had gathered earlier at the local Kennedy headquarters. With CBS News projecting his victory, we really believed that he would be the next president of the United States and that things would change. We all yelled in celebration.

On the television sets at the local headquarters we cheered him when Bobby Kennedy appeared at the Ambassador Hotel where an even louder crowd of supporters yelled his name, clapped and cheered.

It seemed then like a moment in time where it felt that power and destiny had shifted to the "good side", a moment that was thrilling, delirious and happy. .

There was a sense of profound joy because all of us there - everyone who supported RFK, believed now he was going to actually win the presidency. And a sense of hope because when he won, somehow the country would come back together again after years of violence, racial and economic divisions and war. We didn't know that those hopes would be taken away within minutes

And so the crowd at the local headquarters that we were at - and the crowd at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, where Kennedy spoke, listened with pure excitement to his victory speech - that at times felt like it was almost prayer for the country.

He thanked by name then California Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh, who was behind RFK on the stage, for getting him into the presidential race. He made a special point and thanked Cesar Chavez, Burt Coronoa from the United Farm Workers who weren't able to get to the ballroom in time He also gave recognition and thanks to "my old friend" Dolores Huerta, also with the United Farm Workers, who stood next to him on the crowded stage, and thanked black leaders and friends, and labor, including a prominent labor organizer, Paul Schrade, who would also be shot and wounded in the shooting that was now only just a few minutes away.

Robert Kennedy, speaking without a prepared text, seemed, as friend said later "at ease with himself" with humor and passion and seemed to him, for the first time looking and sounding like a president:

"I think we can end the divisions in the United States. What I think is quite clear is, that we can work together in the last analysis. And that what has been going on in the United States over the period of the last three years, the divisions, the violence, the disenchantment with our society, the divisions, whether it's between blacks and whites, between the poor and more affluent, between age groups, or the war in Vietnam, that we can start to work together. We are a great country, a selfless country, and a compassionate country, and I intend to make that my basis for running over the period of the next few months.....so my thanks to you all, and it's on to Chicago, and lets win there,"

Kennedy told the wildly cheering crowd at the Ambassador Hotel. We cheered and clapped too at the local headquarters.

And then he moved off the packed stage as people in the crowd there at the Ambassador Hotel and at the local headquarters continued to cheer.

The excitement had reached its peak and was now dissipating, with people at the local headquarters milling around, talking and starting to break up. It was late - and people were starting to get ready to leave.

Someone - an adult - was getting ready to take a few of us home because we were too young to drive.

And then someone shouted.

"Something's happened - something's happened!!!"

Another shout and people froze and then gathered around the blaring TV screen, with a growing sense of alarm and dread. What had happened? The crowd at the Ambassador Hotel now was beginning to scream in shock- but we couldn't tell what happened.

And then on TV, as we watched in stunned silence, as confusion and pandemonium broke out in Los Angeles, someone at the Ambassador Hotel ballroom, where moments before Kennedy had just left, yelled out implored the screaming crowd there that "...if you don't leave, we cannot get medical aid to the senator". Kennedy had been shot. A news anchor broke in saying "we have heard alarming reports that Senator Kennedy has been shot".

At that moment everyone at the local headquarters all at once gasped out loud, some people screaming "Oh my God no!!!!" "not Bobby, not Bobby!!! "No! No! No!" "Oh why? Why?"

The emotion of tears, shock and anguish was something almost indescribable - there at the Ambassador as the stunned crowd shrieked in disbelief and horror - and the local headquarters where we all reeled with the horrifying, unbelievable news. How could another assassination happen again to another leader we loved? .

Grown men and women wailed with grief, and collapsed into each others arms, crying "not again oh god not again" over and over - thinking of King, but also of JFK.

I remember an older black man sitting on a chair, hunched over sobbing, crying over and over "oh not him, Lord, not him" and hugged tightly by another campaign worker, who was white, and also crying.

The adult campaign workers got those of us who were too young, out of there fast, seeing our stunned reactions - and took us home. We were all in tears but silent. We all prayed in that car - and through the night - as did so many across the country.

The next day - on June 6th, just after 1 AM, he died. The campaign of hope was over. What ever little bit of hope that continued after the death of Martin Luther King that April, seemed crushed after Robert Kennedy died in June.

I think so many people then felt that so many hopes and dreams that Robert Kennedy seemed to embody - as did Martin Luther King, died that day too.

Now, 40 years have passed, and the pain for so many Americans of losing that dream and hope to violence once again on that awful, awful night in 1968, feels as terrible now as it did then.

Jules Witcover Recalled Robert Kennedy:

Photo of Robert F. Kennedy running on beach in Oregon, late May 1968

Jules Witcover, Author of "85 Days: The Last Campaign of Robert Kennedy" and "The Year the Dream Died: Revisiting 1968 in America." remembered Robert Kennedy:

Of all my memories of Bob Kennedy, the one that stands out most is the recollection of his introduction of the film about his brother, President Kennedy, at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City.

Before he could speak, he was drowned in a seemingly endless tribute of applause, and tears. He stood on the platform, head bowed, allowing himself from time to time only a wan smile as he tried to break in but could not stem the outpouring of affection.

When it finally stilled, he borrowed from Shakespeare to describe his beloved brother: "When he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night, and pay no worship to the garish sun."

Then, as the film flashed on a huge overhead screen, Bob retreated to behind the stage and sat alone on the steps, wept, out of sight from all but the press section, watching the image and listening to the voice of his departed brother.

Four years later in Chicago, the scene was eerily repeated at the next [1968] Democratic convention, with a similar film of himself strolling alone on a beach in Oregon and this time taped remarks from surviving brother Ted, still in mourning, summing up: "If my brother's life, and death, had one meaning above all others, it was this: that we should not hate but love one another, that our strength should not be used to create the conditions of oppression that lead to violence, but the conditions that lead to peace."

The parallel scenes captured for me the essence of Robert Kennedy's deep loyalty to family, and compassion toward the much larger human family, combined with action in behalf of both."

Sen. Edward Kennedy Eulogy to His Brother - June 1968 St Patrick's Cathedral, New York City:

Sen. Edward Kennedy gave a moving eulogy to his brother. His voice wavered with emotion, when he spoke of older brother Joe, who died in World War II, sister Kathleen who died in a plane crash in 1948, and JFK, who was assassinated just four and half years before:

"...We loved him as a brother and father and son. From his parents, and from his older brothers and sisters--Joe, Kathleen and Jack--he received inspiration which he passed on to all of us. He gave us strength in time of trouble, wisdom in time of uncertainty, and sharing in time of happiness. He was always by our side.
Love is not an easy feeling to put into words. Nor is loyalty, or trust or joy. But he was all of these. He loved life completely and lived it intensely...

He nearly lost his composure at the end of his eulogy, his voice breaking with grief when he spoke these final words of farewell:

My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life. To be remembered simply as a good and decent man: who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.
Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.

As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him:
"Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."

Go to CDCAN website at www.cdcan.us to listen to Edward Kennedy's entire eulogy.

April 5, 1968 - Formal Speech by RFK after Murder of Dr. King

Kennedy kept only one public appearance before the City Club of Cleveland, Ohio, after King's assassination and before his funeral in Atlanta, to speak of the reasons for the rising outbreaks of violence across America and the need for reconciliation. The speech - included here in its entirety, can also stand as a epitaph for Kennedy himself - spoken exactly 2 months before he himself was the victim of violence. It is considered one of Kennedy's greatest speeches - after his speech in South Africa in 1966, and his brief remarks to a waiting crowd at Indianoplois, Indiana, just after King was killed. He spoke in a somber tone - thinking of King, but inevitably thinking of Dallas and the violence that took his brother and that would soon claim him.

"This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.

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.

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.

"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs."

Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others.

Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.
Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night.

This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay.

This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.
This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.

I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done.

When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.

Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again. "

URGENT!!!!

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