Robert F. Kennedy's Speech in Indianapolis, April 4, 1968, on the Death
of Martin Luther King
Ladies and Gentlemen I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute
or so this evening. Because...
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.
Martin Luther King
dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings.
He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult
time for the United States, it's 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 evidently is that there
were white people who were responsible you can be filled with bitterness,
and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.
We can move in that
direction as a country, in greater polarization black people amongst
blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another.
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.
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.
But we have to make
an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand,
to get beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite 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."
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.
(Interrupted by applause)
So I ask you tonight
to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King,
yeah 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. 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.
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 that abide in our land.
(Interrupted by applause)
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. Thank you
very much. (Applause)
Robert F. Kennedy
- April 4, 1968
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