This is a YouTube video titled "RFK On The Night Of MLK’s Jr.’s Assassination" containing a monologue or speech given by RFK recounting the events and his father's courageous response to Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968. The content reflects on leadership, compassion, and calls for peace during a time of national unrest. The video was created in May 2020.
When Martin Luther King died on April 4th, 1968, Daddy was campaigning in Indiana and his plane landed in Indianapolis. And he got a call from the mayor of Indianapolis, white mayor Richard Lugar at that time, who said, you,'re supposed to go and give a speech at a rally in the largest African-American neighborhood in Indianapolis. You can't go. Because already 125 cities have started rioting and looting and burning across our country with the news about Martin Luther King. And it's too dangerous. And let me just remind you that, that Dover Delaware was in martial law for nine months after April 4th, 1968. Wow. No, I mean, people think it was bad then, really violent and scary. And my father said, and Luger said, you can't go there. And even if you do go there, I want to allow my police to go with you because it's too dangerous for my cops and I'm not going to put them in harm's way. Wow. My father said, with all due respect, Mr. Mayor, you might not be able to go there, but I've worked with that community for years and years. And I could go there tonight with my pregnant wife and my 10 children. Nothing would happen to them. And he went. There's a word we use for that in Judaism, it's called chutzpah. The front of the crowd had been waiting for this before cell phones had been waiting for him for hours and they hadn't heard a word. Back of the crowd people had heard about Hank. And they came with Molotov cocktails and bicycle chains. and they were ready to riot. And my father got up and he just spoke spontaneously and he said some very bad news for you. Martin Luther King has been shot and killed tonight. And he said, you know, for those of you who are angered by the injustice of this act and tempted towards violence, I can say I understand that feeling because I had a member of my family who was killed by a white man with a gun. Now try and imagine somebody running for president, talking to a crowd, ready to riot and saying, I understand your feelings. I mean, just impossible, right? And then he went on to say that we need in the United States is not division and violence and lawlessness, but justice. and a sense of compassion towards those who still suffer in our country, whether they be black or they be white. And then he urged people to go home and say a prayer for the King family and a prayer for our country. And that night, Indianapolis was peaceful and the rest of the country burned. Yeah. And so that's what we need in our country today. We need that leadership, we need that vision, We need that self-confidence to stand up and to go into the danger zone, but to do it with compassion and love and openness to the pain of others.
