Lessons from R.F.K.
On this day 50 years ago, Senator Robert Francis Kennedy died from the bullets of Sirhan Sirhan. In the same decade, his older brother, President John F. Kennedy, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were also slain by the guns of assassins. In many ways, R.F.K.'s death was the tip of the iceberg for our country. People who our nation looked up to, who were seen as unifiers in a nation divided by race, the haves, and have-nots, anti-Vietnam and pro-Vietnam, and the other ways in which people were split apart, were suddenly gone.
Fifty years on, what can we learn from the life and death of R.F.K.? Perhaps the greatest lesson we can take from R.F.K. is how he evolved as a politician and ultimately as a person. R.F.K. wasn't always the radical liberal icon that he has come to be. He was born into one of America's wealthiest families, and as such, grew up without the worries of the average American. He and his family associated with other elite families, attended elite schools and colleges, and ultimately married into other elite families.
As a young lawyer making his way in the world, he served on the staff of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, whose name would become synonymous with the witch hunt on suspected communists in the federal government. R.F.K. saw Dr. King and the civil rights movement as a distraction from "more important" issues like the economy and the Cold War. Many also do not realize that as Attorney General (during his brother's administration, no-less), R.F.K. personally signed off on orders for the FBI to wiretap Dr. King's home and offices, or that he was embarassed by the clashes in the South between the Freedom Riders and local authorities.
However, he didn't stay long as a staffer for Sen. McCarthy, as he didn't agree with McCarthy's handling of the trials. He would also go on to attack Roy Cohn, chief counsel to Sen. McCarthy, during the Army-McCarthy Hearings of 1954, to the point where Cohn had to be restrained after challenging Kennedy to a fight.
As Attorney General, Kennedy began to realize that he was on the wrong side of the civil rights debate- that of a bystander. R.F.K. and the Kennedy family in general were not explicitly racist, but like many white people of their era, they prefered not to talk about civil rights and race. R.F.K. wasn't any different in that regard. However, as he had to deal with the state governments of the south when they would violently squash civil rights demonstrations and prevent black students from attending public schools, he began to have a change of heart and learned to empathize with black people fighting for their civil rights.
As Senator, R.F.K. would come face to face with the poverty he was sheltered from. He toured the Mississippi Delta region, meeting black children with disentended bellies, who lived in shacks on dirt floors and had no access to basic health care or educational opportunity. He visited slums in the inner cities of America, seeing first hand how the lack of jobs and opportunity impacted those communities. The sights of these inequalities disgusted him. In Bedford-Stuyvesant, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, Sen. Kennedy helped to start a successful redevelopment project. He also supported busing, total integration, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and futher government programs to combat poverty in America.
As a member of the Senate Labor Committee, Kennedy was requested to personally investigate the struggle of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta to organize a union for the farm workers of California's Central Valley. He was angered by the conditions of the farm workers, who lived in sub-par conditions for little pay, and so he joined them on the picket line and helped to bring attention to their cause. He even became close with Cesar Chavez, who after a long fast, agreed to end it if Kennedy came to California to break bread with him, which Kennedy fulfilled.
Do these actions forgive R.F.K.'s surveillance of Dr. King, his work with Sen. McCarthy, and his early disregard for the civil rights movement? Perhaps. Perhaps not. The more important question though is if people can evolve? Simply stated, yes, but one cannot evolve if they do not open themselves to experiences and people different from themselves, nor can one evolve if they build walls around themselves.
R.F.K. could have easily just stayed home and inherited his family's wealth. But he pushed himself out of his comfort zone. He opened himself to the idea that he was wrong by questioning his biases and by getting to know people unlike himself. And when he came to see a world beyond the safety and exclusiveness of Hickory Hill or Hyannis Point, he felt duty-bound to change himself, the world around him, and the lives of his less privileged, less secure neighbors, for the better.
Rest in eternal life.
Fifty years on, what can we learn from the life and death of R.F.K.? Perhaps the greatest lesson we can take from R.F.K. is how he evolved as a politician and ultimately as a person. R.F.K. wasn't always the radical liberal icon that he has come to be. He was born into one of America's wealthiest families, and as such, grew up without the worries of the average American. He and his family associated with other elite families, attended elite schools and colleges, and ultimately married into other elite families.
As a young lawyer making his way in the world, he served on the staff of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, whose name would become synonymous with the witch hunt on suspected communists in the federal government. R.F.K. saw Dr. King and the civil rights movement as a distraction from "more important" issues like the economy and the Cold War. Many also do not realize that as Attorney General (during his brother's administration, no-less), R.F.K. personally signed off on orders for the FBI to wiretap Dr. King's home and offices, or that he was embarassed by the clashes in the South between the Freedom Riders and local authorities.
However, he didn't stay long as a staffer for Sen. McCarthy, as he didn't agree with McCarthy's handling of the trials. He would also go on to attack Roy Cohn, chief counsel to Sen. McCarthy, during the Army-McCarthy Hearings of 1954, to the point where Cohn had to be restrained after challenging Kennedy to a fight.
As Attorney General, Kennedy began to realize that he was on the wrong side of the civil rights debate- that of a bystander. R.F.K. and the Kennedy family in general were not explicitly racist, but like many white people of their era, they prefered not to talk about civil rights and race. R.F.K. wasn't any different in that regard. However, as he had to deal with the state governments of the south when they would violently squash civil rights demonstrations and prevent black students from attending public schools, he began to have a change of heart and learned to empathize with black people fighting for their civil rights.
As Senator, R.F.K. would come face to face with the poverty he was sheltered from. He toured the Mississippi Delta region, meeting black children with disentended bellies, who lived in shacks on dirt floors and had no access to basic health care or educational opportunity. He visited slums in the inner cities of America, seeing first hand how the lack of jobs and opportunity impacted those communities. The sights of these inequalities disgusted him. In Bedford-Stuyvesant, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, Sen. Kennedy helped to start a successful redevelopment project. He also supported busing, total integration, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and futher government programs to combat poverty in America.
As a member of the Senate Labor Committee, Kennedy was requested to personally investigate the struggle of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta to organize a union for the farm workers of California's Central Valley. He was angered by the conditions of the farm workers, who lived in sub-par conditions for little pay, and so he joined them on the picket line and helped to bring attention to their cause. He even became close with Cesar Chavez, who after a long fast, agreed to end it if Kennedy came to California to break bread with him, which Kennedy fulfilled.
Do these actions forgive R.F.K.'s surveillance of Dr. King, his work with Sen. McCarthy, and his early disregard for the civil rights movement? Perhaps. Perhaps not. The more important question though is if people can evolve? Simply stated, yes, but one cannot evolve if they do not open themselves to experiences and people different from themselves, nor can one evolve if they build walls around themselves.
R.F.K. could have easily just stayed home and inherited his family's wealth. But he pushed himself out of his comfort zone. He opened himself to the idea that he was wrong by questioning his biases and by getting to know people unlike himself. And when he came to see a world beyond the safety and exclusiveness of Hickory Hill or Hyannis Point, he felt duty-bound to change himself, the world around him, and the lives of his less privileged, less secure neighbors, for the better.
Rest in eternal life.
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