I have been at a loss lately, to provide any words of significance, much less wisdom, on the current state of our country and what sometimes feels to me like a dismantling of our society. Words fail me.
But I did find some words that I’d like to share with our Zephyr readers. They go back more than half a century, to a crisis moment in time that feels eerily like 2020.
On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. As news of his death swept the country, race riots exploded in over one hundred major cities, from coast to coast–including New York. Washington DC, Detroit. Chicago. Kansas City. Cincinnati. Louisville… Property damage ran to the hundreds of millions of dollars. Dozens were killed. Hundreds injured.
That evening, Senator Robert Kennedy, campaigning in Indianapolis, learned of King’s death just moments before addressing a campaign rally, and he spoke just briefly to those assembled. The next day, in Cleveland, before a gathering of 2000, Robert Kennedy spoke again, this time to counter the riots and violence that had erupted overnight. His remarks are as poignant and as important, and—sad to say— as relevant today, as they were then.
Please take the time to read this… JS
“ON THE MINDLESS MENACE OF VIOLENCE”
By Senator Robert F. Kennedy
This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.
It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one—no matter where he lives or what he does—can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.
Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr’s cause can ever be stilled by an assassin’s bullet.
No wrongs have ever been righted by riots or civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.
Whenever any American’s life is taken by another American unnecessarily—whether it is done in the name of the law or in defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence—whenever we tear at the fabric of life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.
What has violence ever accomplished?
What has it ever created?
No wrongs have ever been righted by riots or civil disorders.
A sniper is only a coward, not a hero;
and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob
is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.
“Among free men,” said Abraham Lincoln, “there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs.”
Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.
Whenever any American’s life is taken
by another American unnecessarily—
whether it is done in the name of the law
or in defiance of the law, by one man or a gang,
in cold blood or in passion,
in an attack of violence or in response to violence—
whenever we tear at the fabric of life
which another man has painfully and clumsily woven
for himself and his children,
the whole nation is degraded.
“Among free men,” said Abraham Lincoln,
“there can be no successful appeal
from the ballot to the bullet;
and those who take such appeal are sure
to lose their cause and pay the costs.”
Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their very conduct invited them.
Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression breeds retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.
This is the breaking of a man’s spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.
Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies,
but this much is clear:
violence breeds violence, repression breeds retaliation,
and only a cleansing of our whole society
can remove this sickness from our soul.
I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.
We learn, at the last, to look to our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.
Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.
…there is another kind of violence,
slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot
or the bomb in the night.
This is the violence of institutions;
indifference and inaction and slow decay.
This is the violence that afflicts the poor,
that poisons relations between men
because their skin has different colors.
We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children’s future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.
Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.
But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.
Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.
You can watch an excerpt from Kennedy’s speech on Youtube, below:
Jim Stiles is Founding Publisher and Senior Editor of the Canyon Country Zephyr.
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I remember Kennedy’s speeches well. Many historians have credited him with preventing in Indianapolis the violence that was sweeping the country’s cities. He was right: Violence is never the answer to society’s problems.
Thank you for sharing this, Jim. Time and again you return us–your readers–to these historical moments that give us a little light in the present moment. I appreciate your efforts.
Good speech–I noticed Dubinky’s Granfalloon in the backbone. Let me quote from wikipedia, since they express it so nicely: “A granfalloon, in the fictional religion of Bokononism (created by Kurt Vonnegut in his 1963 novel Cat’s Cradle), is defined as a “false karass”. That is, it is a group of people who affect a shared identity or purpose, but whose mutual association is meaningless.” I’d like to think that the “karass”, or association of Zephyr readers, is actually meaningful. As for Dubinky, he’s an old pal at this household. Our first commando camps, back in the early 80s, were on the Dubinky Wells road. Always thought that would make a great pseudonym!
Very good.
This was a great speech, and it exemplifies where we might have gone as a nation, instead of where we ended up after 1968. But historical speculation does not really get us anywhere, so I’d say that at least we have Bobby’s words to fall back on during these horrible times. Thanks for sharing this. It gives me some solace when I look at the cycles in history: We go up and down, but there is a common tread of hope that permeates the chaos, and RFK continues to resonate and provide hope. Violence has never solved anything, either from the side of the protestors or the State sponsored reactions.
I remember everything about him. Robert Kennedy was the first political race I got involved in. I passed out Kennedy material door to door in my small rural Utah Mormon town. Not a popular thing to do. When he was murdered I was shattered.
Martin Luther King Jr. said, “a riot is the language of the unheard.” One must distinguish the “violence” of the poor, oppressed, and working-class from the violence of the state and its police and military. No significant progress has ever been made without threatening the power or wealth or persons of the ruling/wealthy class and their politicians and police. Emancipation, women’s suffrage, the 8-hour day, child labor laws, the New Deal, the Civil and Voting Rights Act, etc. were not won by the ballot or petition alone–they needed the help of acts and threats of disruption to the status quo. Demonstrations and protests that do not significantly disrupt can and will be ignored by those in authority. Even Gandhi recognized that he may not have succeeded without the guerrillas in the back-country fighting the British occupation army.
I shudder at the raw truth of RFK’s words. Have we learned nothing during the time since the assassinations of RFK, JFK and Martin Luther King? Apparently very little. If one didn’t realize the date, it would be easy to think they were being said about the horrific events of the present. Even since this article was published, forces are at work to rend our country in two – the same specific forces that RFK sets out in his speech made in 1968.
Our wakeup call has long passed. Now what?
Thanks for this, Jim.
I was not aware of this speech. I have watched what RFK said the night before many times. So beautiful and heartfelt, and tenderly sad. This speech got to the heart of the matter, and sadly is profoundly relevant today. Thank you for publishing it so it for all to read.