5 June 1968 - Where Were You?

[launderess]

Forty years ago the United States suffered a loss it probably never has recovered from, the killing of Robert F. Kennedy.

Here is a bit of a speech RFK gave at the Commonwealth Club:


"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?

All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don't. And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity.

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.

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.

What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists, is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. the evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.

Whenever men take the law into their own hands, the loser is the law. and when the law loses, freedom languishes."

From the song by Dion:

"Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up over the hill
With Abraham, Martin, and John"

L.

 

[laundromat]

I was out visiting an old FRIGIDAIRE dealership (Norman R.Mitchell)on Frankford Ave. and Harford Rd. in Baltimore.They also sold furniture and T.V. sets.They had the T.V.s on and every one had the news coverage on Kennedy's speach turned on.All of the sudden,here was a shot and I looked over to see that he'd been killed.I ran home and we all watched in horror as the news told all that happened. jjjjjj

 

[jamman_98]

I remember

I ws 5 years old and living with my Mom at my Grandmothers house in Concord NC while my father was in the Army and station at Cam Ron Bay. My Mom's birthday was June 6th so the RFK assination was the day before. My Dad had survived the Tet Offensive and was due to come home in June for his next assignment to Ft. Carson Colorado. For me the 1960's was a great time to grow up but when I was older and started getting intersted in history that I learned how facinating that time was.

 

[sheerlookhomes]

I remember

I was in the back garden of our home in Ireland, it was a nice day and I'm pretty sure it was a Saturday. My mum came out into the garden and told me...I thought the whole world had gone quite mad.

 

[sheerlookhomes]

I remember

I was in the back garden of our home in Ireland, it was a nice day and I'm pretty sure it was a Saturday. My mum came out into the garden and told me...I thought the whole world had gone quite mad..

 

[panthera]

I was

back in school in that fascist enclave Fort Collins, Colorado (having been kicked out for calling MLK a great man brutally murdered a few weeks before in class.) Our teacher (the one who had me sent home the first time) told us that the marxist catholic (her very words), Robert Kennedy had been shot.
Since the next day was the last day of school, they didn't bother punishing me for coming to school with a black arm band...but my dad's office had a rock thrown threw the window for flying the flag at half-mast.
When I read the rage of some, I understand better today than I did as a child how dangerous independent thought, how seditious true loyalty to the constitution is.
I don't pray very often, but I fervently hope and, yes, pray, that I will never again hear of an assassination in US politics.

 

[dalangdon]

I was three, and I just remember my mom sobbing, and how upsetting that was.

 

[frigilux]

I had just finished third grade and watched the whole thing unfold on TV, along with (as was the case with Dan in Seattle) my sobbing mom.

 

[sudsmaster]

I recall I was at home, sleeping. I was awoken by a commotion in the flat above us, and voices. For some reason I turned on the little RCA tube AM radio by my bed and heard the news. My first thought was, "Oh no, not again". The mood in high school the next Monday was somber, and it seemed like most people were disappointed that Hubert Humphrey would wind up the nominee. It was sort of the start of a national nightmare that didn't end until Nixon resigned some six years later.

I remember attending a computer conference at the Ambassador Hotel back in the 80's. It was pretty run down by then; whatever glory it once had was quite faded. Old and stained carpeting, faded drapes, faded paint, etc. The main conference was in the same ballroom where RFK was shot. The hotel closed a few years later and I learned from wiki that the property is now owned by the LA school district with plans to build a huge 4,000+ student mixed campus. Had I known more about the hotel I probably would have explored the grounds when I was there, and caught a show at the Coconut Grove, which I understand will be kept on as a school auditorium.

 

[passatdoc]

It was the week before my graduation from elementary school and sixth grade. I was living in San Diego. My normal bed time of 9 pm was enforced on the night of the primary, and at that point the election was too close to call, so the whole family went to bed. I woke up around six in the morning to turn on the tv in the den to see who had won.

Instead of election results, I heard, "...for those of you just joining us now, shortly after midnight, Senator Robert Kennedy was shot at point blank range in the hotel kitchen after declaring victory in the California primary. He is in critical condition at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles..."

I ran upstairs to wake my parents and tell them the news. I don't remember crying so much as everyone shaking their heads, burying their heads in the hands, and crying out "oh no, not again...."

I had seen RFK speak at a rally in downtown San Diego five days earlier. I was standing on the top floor of a parking structure across the street from the civic center, where he was speaking to a crowd. I remember thinking, "there is no security here. I could have a gun and no one would be able to stop me, and the view from here is excellent."

As far as I recall, Secret Service protection of candidates did not being until after George Wallace was shot in 1972.

 

[rp2813]

RFK had swung through town here not long before 6/5/68. The city has since placed a memorial podium in the park where he addressed a crowd estimated a 12,000 which was a huge number for its day.

6/5/68 was the primary election here so we were all watching results on TV when the news came. Rich is right about the disappointment over the prospect of a Humphrey-Nixon contest that was ensured for the following November. I was finishing 8th long years of Catholic school and wasn't old enough to vote yet.

I'll probably be coming across some RFK and JFK campaign buttons as I sort through things over at Mom's old place over the course of the coming weeks (if not months from the looks of things).

 

[passatdoc]

Rocks through the window? We had black paint poured on our d

In 1960, my parents had the temerity to display a JFK lawn sign in an overwhelmingly Republican, Protestant neighborhood in San Diego. We had only moved in to that house a few months prior, and we soon had an unannounced visit from the local welcome committee: a bucket of black paint poured on our driveway, and a couple of dead fish were left on the front porch to make a point.

The powers that be must have (incorrectly) surmised that we were Roman Catholics and obvious dangerous socialists....not that it would have been an appropriate expression had we actually been Catholic. That explained the fish, and I suppose the black paint meant that we were in bed with the Negroes or something. My sister and I were too young to understand what was going on. I remember the black paint but assumed someone had had an accident with a paint can.

We had the last laugh in November, but that experience taught my family what it was like to be members of an unwanted minority, even if it was a case of mistaken identity. Given that one factor in their decision to back Kennedy was their belief that there should be no religious test for office, they felt even more justified in their support for him after this ugly incident.

Panthera, we were immune to this kind of stuff in 1968, with one parent supporting McCarthy, one for RFK, and no lawn signs! However, there were whispers in 1964 that we were socialists because my mother had a Rockefeller sticker on her car, and the Rockefeller family (of Standard Oil fame) are well-known Communists. After he was beaten by Goldwater, she swapped the sticker for one that read "in your guts, you know he's nuts."