More than 48 years ago, standing on the back of a flatbed truck in Indianapolis, IN, a man addressed an anxious crowd.
Just hours before, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated outside of a motel in Memphis, TN. Riots consumed countless cities across the country in an uprising of violent protests not seen since the civil war. The country bled and burned at the news of the beloved leader’s tragic passing.
Yet, no city truly honored Dr. King’s legacy more than Indianapolis. In what may be one of the most genuine speeches ever delivered, Robert F. Kennedy urged the crowd to imitate King’s peaceful resolve.
“What we need in the United States is not division,” said Kennedy, “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.”
I can’t begin to imagine the feeling of despair that must have followed hearing such devastating news; the feeling of helplessness at the cruel irony that a man’s life characterized by non-violence was snuffed out by violence.
Instead of taking advantage of the crowd’s weakness and sorrow, Kennedy, much like Dr. King, spoke to the people’s truer and deeper natures. Underneath every feeling of despair is a desire to hope and to believe in the goodness of humankind. Underneath every feeling of helplessness is a sense of justice and liberation.
In 2017, Americans are once again asked to remember and honor the life of Dr. King, just as Kennedy did on that tragic day so many years ago. For many Americans today, Dr. King’s life and death seem like a distant memory. College students in particular never experienced the decades-long struggle for civil rights.
Despite this, what unites all of humanity across space and time is the very human struggle for peace in our world.
In light of Martin Luther King Day, let us, as Kennedy so patiently urged, “dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of the world.”
Tyler Grudi is a staff writer for the Bona Venture his email is gruditj15@bonaventure.edu
