Just over 50 years ago, on April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated and across the United States explosive protests broke out all over the country.
In stark contrast to today, Robert Kennedy, a Democratic presidential candidate, gave the following speech in Indianapolis.
Kennedy’s speech perhaps offers a lesson in leadership and reminds the United States, but also the world there are different ways to lead.
Robert Kennedy’s speech
“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 favourite 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.”
The Church in the Modern World
That the world, but particularly the United States still needs to address the issues of race, power, pain, privilege and violence remains a scandal.
A little more than 50 years ago, Pope Paul VI promulgated Gaudium et Spes, the “Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World”.
“The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men and women of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.
“Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts.
“For theirs is a community composed of men and women.
“United in Christ, they are led by the Holy Spirit in their journey to the Kingdom of their Father and they have welcomed the news of salvation which is meant for every man and woman.
“That is why this community realises that it is truly linked with humanity and its history by the deepest of bonds.” (Paragraph 1.)