On April 4th, 1968, at 6 .05 p .m., Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
was shot down in Memphis, Tennessee.
The scene was shot in the middle of the night.
The scene was shot in the middle of the night.
The scene was shot in the middle of the night.
The scene was shot in the middle of the night.
The scene was shot in the middle of the night.
The scene was shot in the middle of the night.
The scene was shot in the middle of the night.
The scene was shot in the middle of the night.
The scene was shot in the middle of the night.
The world comes from heaven.
For all that is in my heart, I do believe.
The eternal world comes from heaven.
From the days of chaos came a cry of urgency, a cry of now.
This is our home.
This is where we all live.
We're not separate countries.
We're all one and a part of one another.
And what effects where one part of the nation suffers, the rest of the country suffers.
When one part of the United States prospers, we all go up.
That's what I want to see recognized in this country.
And I want to see us break down the barriers that presently divide us and start dealing with one another.
And working with one another to deal with these problems.
The vice president has gone to the American people and said, this is the politics of joy and the politics of happiness.
I don't happen to think that that describes the condition in the United States at the present time.
I don't think that we can say we have politics of joy.
Senator Robert F.
Kennedy of New York had been late entering the 68 race.
Now he must run twice as hard through Indiana, Nebraska, Oregon, and California.
Sustained by a kind of spring steel inner turmoil.
Often visibly frightened by this involvement, he turned toward the people for vindication.
Turned toward the crowds for signs that his decision was a right one.
Anxious to be worthy of them.
Anxious to look into their faces and to touch them.
Harassed by the necessity to prove to himself and to the folks back east that he had a right to the job he was asking for.
And to prove to the democratic delegates, who in five months would meet in Chicago convention assembled, that this was indeed another Kennedy year.
The pace was frenetic.
He moved swiftly with the lithe grace and intense awareness of a bullfighter.
This was a celebrity running, but a star -crossed celebrity carrying a tragic sense of history.
An El Cordobes of American politics.
If Kennedy was El Cordobes, the bullfighter, Senator Eugene McCarthy continued on as Don Quixote, dreaming the improbable dream.
He had started in the cold of New Hampshire, leading what some had called a children's crusade.
He had been running uphill against politicians, pollsters, and the advice of columnists who said he couldn't make it.
He saw himself as an accidental candidate who spoke against our presence in Vietnam with no precedent for success, but he believed that there was no precedent against it, and he had come away from New Hampshire with a piece of the action.
He had gone into Wisconsin, a more serious candidate, and seen the president capitulate.
He was now running against something perhaps even more imposing, the power of the Kennedys and the Kennedy mystique.
I remember one tough day in Indiana.
Early morning meetings with Gary politicians and labor leaders.
Then on the South Bend, El Cardo in Evansville.
It was a tough day, the crowds were small, a struggle for votes in Kennedy territory.
But the Nader was at noon as he watched TV in a Gary airport.
Now the TV had been pushed aside and he commented on Hubert Humphrey's entrance into the race.
I don't know, I noticed that he used a lot of words beginning with P in this speech.
That was a significant point.
Priorities, peace, politics.
He took a poet's view of the TV performance, but I sensed a despondency.
Now it was not only the Kennedys and their history he was running against.
It was his own history and his friend from Minnesota.
Kennedy had done well in Indiana and Nebraska, but not as well as had been expected.
McCarthy and his young people had developed a new kind of politics.
It was an announcement that when Senator Kennedy came in that all this so -called great love affair between me and the students would come to an end.
I thought it might develop into a kind of triangle, but I might have to sue for alienation of affections or something of that kind.
But the record has proved that the students have stood by me all the way.
And while the experts still couldn't really take McCarthy seriously, many of the voters did.
The real test was to be on the West Coast.
Oregon was considered a giant suburb of contended voters and California a frantic microcosm of the nation as a whole.
I said to my faithful workers in Nebraska that I checked out the history of the Westward movement and found that practically every wagon train had made it to the Missouri.
It was only after you crossed it and started on the Oregon Trail and the California Trail that the real test began.
For the first time in Oregon, McCarthy had the support of a regular democratic organization.
But these primaries were conducted at final test time and the distances were great and not many student volunteers could come.
California was a campaign of fast cars, surging crowds, and whistle stops.
But out of it all, one night in Los Angeles sticks in my mind.
Kennedy had come in from Oregon for a rally at the sports arena and suddenly he was alone.
He walked in the lobby, the sound of the entertainment filtering out.
The reporters and the cameramen and the spectators who saw him stayed back, sensing somehow that this was a time for him to be alone.
Then he turned and moved into the crowd with his hand out as he had so many times and with that same tense look.
It was a night of triumph that so many had been.
The sports arena was filled and the crowd warm and enthusiastic.
But I kept seeing him as I had here in the Democratic Convention of 1960, a thin and tense figure managing his brother's campaign.
And remembered how they had taken the sports arena on the first ballot.
We waited on the plane until the senator returned from a TV interview.
Pretty soon the plane took off and he came back to join his aides and the reporters.
The fatigue showed through as the plane waved north relentlessly toward Oregon and more long days of campaigning.
My mom, he was on that show one day, you know, Meet the Past or something like that.
And my mom, and he gave a real good speech, you know.
And my mom said he was a real good fellow.
I think he'll win.
I think he's going to win.
Win because his brother was the president, but I don't think so.
I think he's going to win on his own merits.
Yeah, I don't like how he's saying it's just running behind his brother's name.
Everybody says that, but I don't think it's true.
He can win without that.
The right to bring control of the government back to the people themselves so that they have some control over their own future and their control over their own destiny.
In this effort, in this effort, I ask for your support on Tuesday.
I need your help.
I need your assistance.
And I come here to ask for your support.
I think all of us working together can make a difference for the United States of America.
And I think we can make a difference around the rest of the globe if we work together and if we act together.
And I come here to ask for your support in that effort.
Kennedy lost to McCarthy in Oregon.
Why did I lose? Just because I didn't do well enough.
I mean, there wasn't any, I can just, the only fault or blame is me.
I can't, but I can't.
That's me.
I'm going to do the best I can.
And I ask for the support.
I'm going to work very hard.
The people that have supported me and believe in the same things that I believe in, I think will work hard.
I'm going to do all that I can.
And I've done all that I can so far.
And if that's the end of it, I'm not successful.
And I will have to abide by that because people have then made a choice in the largest state of the union that they want to move in a different direction.
Take some chances on other peoples in other parts of the world and take some chances on the people who live in the United States.
I followed Senator McCarthy's California struggle for votes from Valley State College through a San Francisco fundraising dinner to Paul Newman's Beverly Hills backyard and backstage at the Joey Bishop show.
I never felt that I really had the right to say I would quit under any circumstances.
I never really thought my candidacy was a personal one, which I could either take or let go if I was disposed to do that.
I never looked upon it as something that relates particularly to what personal judgment I might make about my own future.
I might say I'm surprised at how many people began to worry about my future when I said I was going to run.
Rather touching response from a man who previously had never shown much interest in my career.
Going back to 45, we urged the British to open Palestine to the refugees.
Most of us know what the reason was.
We were unwilling ourselves, as were the other countries of Europe, to really open their doors to immigration on the part of the Jewish refugees and expellees from the other countries.
A kind of moral fault on our part, a weakness on our part, which was reflected in a demand or a request upon...
For both candidates, the grassroots had become a thicket.
While the primaries dragged on, most people felt Hubert Humphrey was cornering Democratic Convention delegate votes.
Kennedy up to this time had been running against Humphrey, but now since Oregon, he saw McCarthy as a more serious candidate and finally accepted McCarthy's challenge to debate.
The debate turned into a conversation.
The heavily contested Democratic race was taking all the headlines, but on the Republican side, Richard Nixon rolled on.
We do believe that together as Republicans, we can present at Miami a platform that will find plenty of room for everybody to get on it, and at the same time, plenty of room for millions of Democrats to get on it, because they will realize that we offer the best hope for new leadership.
That's what we want to do.
Good morning, Mr.
Ball.
I'm one of several hundred Nixon volunteers calling me here with other things today.
We want to remind you to go to polls and vote for Mr.
Nixon, along.
Very good.
That's what we like here.
In an effort to sustain interest in his campaign, he ran a series of telethons and found himself answering the same old questions.
They've said about everything they can about me.
I didn't think they were going to try to pull that over on my down.
Now let's get one thing very clear.
As a congressman, as a senator, as vice president of the United States, as a candidate for president, I supported Social Security.
I supported the increases in Social Security.
I supported the legislation in the Eisenhower administration in which we extended Social Security coverage to millions who hadn't had it previously.
I supported it then.
I support it now.
New York Governor Rockefeller had come into the race too late to enter the primaries, but a write -in campaign was conducted on his behalf.
California's Governor Reagan continuously disavowed his candidacy, but films were shown and a TV campaign conducted in Oregon.
Kennedy was only one generation removed from the infighting of Irish ward politics in Boston.
For a man of great wealth, he had an appeal to all sorts of Americans.
In some sole way, he communicated with the outsiders in American life.
His largest and most enthusiastic crowds were in the lower income wards of Gary and Indianapolis, Omaha and Los Angeles.
Kennedy, I think, represents in the mind of a lot of black people essentially the epitome of success.
He's rich.
He has a lot of children.
He's a lot of things that anyone would want to be.
And that image itself is one reason why people would vote for him, especially poor people.
He had gone into the barrios and ghettos and into the Indian reservations.
Long before the California primary, he had met with Cesar Chavez and the Grape Strikers, the agricultural workers of the San Joaquin Valley.
One reason why Kennedy has a special appeal over McCarthy is that Kennedy, for the Latin people, he has just that charismatic appeal to the people as a very wonderful human being that comes across.
Jack Kennedy represented hope for our community, and I think that that feeding carries over to Bob Kennedy as well.
When the chips were down, the guy who came forward to help out Cesar Chavez and symbolically to help out the entire Mexican -American community, that man was Kennedy.
Today you have 80 % of the Mexican -Americans living in the urban setting and only 20 % in the rural.
But because we all came from the land, the country, so recently, our ties are very close there.
And it's feeding close to the earth, I guess.
Latin people are very emotional.
When they like somebody, they show it.
He was at the farmer market and there were 50 ,000 people there, and everybody, they like the man and they show it.
They want to touch him, you know, and all that.
I don't know how he can go through those things.
It was pretty hard for him.
You know, I've seen it before on TV and it's not so bad, but here I saw how the people were getting to him, you know, and he must be in very good shape to stand there.
I wish that people were more dignified, you know, but it's not that they're undignified, it's that they really like the man, you know.
George Bernard Shaw once wrote, that some people see things as they are and say why.
I dream things that never were and say why not.
He's very careful.
Get the gun.
Get the gun.
Get the gun.
Stay away from the gun.
Stay away from the gun.
His hand is frozen.
Get his thumb.
Get his thumb.
Get his thumb.
Get his thumb and break it if you have to.
Get his thumb.
Get away from the barrel.
Get away from the barrel, man.
Look out for the gun.
Okay.
All right.
That's it, Rayford.
Get it.
Get the gun, Rayford.
Okay, now hold on to the guy.
Hold on to him.
Hold on to him, ladies and gentlemen.
They have the gun away from the man.
In this shot, they've got the gun.
I can't see, I can't see the man.
I can't see who it is.
Senator Kennedy right now is on the ground.
He has been shot.
This is a, this is, what is it? Wait a minute.
Hold him.
Hold him.
Hold him.
We don't want another Oswald.
Hold him, Rayford.
We don't want another Oswald.
When I last appealed to the Congress on this subject again, and that was only a month ago, I asked this question.
What in the name of conscience will it take to pass a truly effective gun control law? It will be remembered simply as the 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 someday 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.
Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not The nation, stunned, licked its wounds over a long weekend, then returned to what we call normal.
The peace talks continued in Paris and the war went on in Vietnam.
De Gaulle was in trouble in France and the students had brought about a thaw in Czechoslovakia.
Columbia University was settling down, but now there was more trouble at Berkeley.
The candidates emerged.
Vice President Humphrey stood his ground, refused to criticize the administration on Vietnam.
While Kennedy and McCarthy had been mixing it up in the primaries, Humphrey had drawn on his years of party loyalty, moved among delegates at state conventions and Democratic Party caucuses.
Statistics and commentators said he was a shoe -in for the coming convention nomination.
Richard Nixon took the statesman's stance.
Let's make that very clear.
We have a united front on negotiation in Paris now.
I'm not going to open a second front here politically in the United States of America.
Every poll among Republican delegates showed Nixon well in the lead for his party's nomination.
Governor Rockefeller had to prove that he had the support of other than party politicians, for he had few of them.
Since his March 31st announcement, President Johnson had been preoccupied with foreign policy, the Paris peace talks and a nuclear treaty with the Russians, but now and then turned up at party meetings.
I just do enjoy coming to party dinners because I used to be in politics myself.
Rockefeller considers himself an independent, a thorn in the flesh of both parties.
Former governor of Alabama, he seemed assured of southern support and nobody could guess how many votes in the north.
If I get 34 % of the vote in Illinois and the other two national parties get 33 apiece, then I win all the electoral vote of Illinois and I got 34 % of the primary vote in Wisconsin four years ago.
Senator McCarthy, the perpetual underdog, had built an outsider's kind of political machine.
What about these young people? What about this children's crusade? Though each candidate had youthful supporters, it was McCarthy's young people who had captured the nation's imagination.
This is the greatest manpower movement in the history of the country, you know, and they've done it themselves.
Other young people have handled the logistics of this.
They were told to bring a sleeping bag and you might, it may cost you about five or six dollars.
All they did was provide the bus and possibly a place to sleep, which was even then undecided.
Turned out that it was a warehouse or something that they stayed at, but that's all we were promised.
I mean it was, if we went, then we went because we really wanted to help.
I knew that they were wanting something or at least needing something by way of an outlet in the political field, but I had no idea that their response would be what it has been because this is really unprecedented.
They've been involved in other campaigns, but never this kind of dedication.
Some had been added since January and before.
A few had moved from volunteers to poorly paid professionals.
Others worked only on weekends in between exams.
They had huddled on college campuses and in hotel ballrooms, buttonhole politicians and voters, and walked strange streets and seen more of America than most of their elders.
They had savored victory.
And they had tasted defeat.
So much money is spent if the money just spent in one day Vietnamese situation was used in one year.
On the poverty project, people wouldn't have to worry about riots in the cities.
There would be no riots in the cities.
What would people have to riot about? You don't riot when you know you're in the city.
You know that your children are going to get a good education when you know that you don't have to live in a ghetto.
They had taken the measure of their times and their candidate.
The news isn't tossing them out quite so readily.
They've been picked out quite a few times already this year, you know.
I've heard a couple of newsmen say, man, this is really the year for the media people because everything they've predicted has gone exactly the opposite so far.
All the way from New Hampshire with the McCarthy campaign and President Johnson withdrawing and have a dozen other things in other areas too.
Everybody, everything they seem to come up with goes the other way, which is kind of cute.
Now if they keep predicting against us, maybe we'll win.
Did you see the night that Johnson declared that, you know, he wasn't going to run? And that night, Ellie Abel was talking to McCarthy for about half an hour afterwards.
And at the end he says, well, thank you very much, Senator Kennedy.
Both of them just cracked up.
The cameraman cracked up.
The cameras are all over the place.
That was really so funny.
I think we're attempting to really change the society to face up to what it's been teaching.
Because a lot of people, you know, are very idealistic and they should be and then suddenly realize that nothing's that way.
And there should be a way of going through life or retaining your ideals, still being able to be mature and idealistic at the same time.
As convention days drew near, the scene changed to an old -fashioned intra -party haggling for delegates.
But by the 4th of July, it was clear that no professional politician of either party could go to the convention without reckoning with these young people in their new politics of 1968.
