Somebody Else’s Words

My brain’s jumble over the last week included in no particular order: D Day Normandy my father patriotism vs false patriotism veterans and the people who use and misuse them liars bullies Robert F Kennedy Mohammed Ali Martin Luther King Jr. civics the Constitution the Declaration of Independence surviving the madness of monarchs despots and dictators a new generation of doers and dreamers Puerto Rico depression as the thief of who and what we love Colin Kaepernick hurricanes heartbreak hope peacemakers dogs who are tortured and dogs who are saved stealing children from their parents keeping children safe truth-tellers seeing past the moment happy and decent young people and their children planting your feet on the right side of history even when it’s uncomfortable especially when it’s uncomfortable bad things/good people…

This week marked the 50th anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination. On my car radio, I heard a story about his speech the day he heard that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated. He was scheduled to speak at a campaign rally in Indianapolis that night. He was urged not to speak. People were uneasy about the mood of crowds and his safety. Having himself lost his brother to an assassin less than five years earlier, it couldn’t have been easy for him to stand at the microphone that night. He scrapped his prepared remarks and gave what many historians say was one of the greatest speeches of the century. Unlike other cities, Indianapolis did not have riots that night, and many attribute it to Kennedy’s speech. I listened to it in its entirety, and there are too many reasons to count for why it left me sobbing in my car.

“I have bad news for you, 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 killed tonight.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.

In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black–considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible–you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization–black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another.

Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I 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. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: ‘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.’

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 or lawlessness; but 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 they be black.

So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, that’s true, 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.

We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we’ve had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.

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.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.”