Robert F. Kennedy speech
What did Kennedy's aides think the speech would cause?
Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
A speech on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. was given on April 4, 1968, by New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy (who was himself assassinated two months later). Kennedy was campaigning for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination and had spoken at the University of Notre Dame and Ball State University earlier that day. Before boarding a plane to fly to Indianapolis for one last campaign speech in a predominantly black neighborhood of the city he learned that Martin Luther King had been shot, leading Kennedy press secretary Frank Mankiewicz to suggest that he ask the audience to pray for the King family and ask them to follow King's deeply held belief in non-violence. They did not learn that King was dead until they landed in Indianapolis. Both Mankiewicz and speechwriter Adam Walinsky drafted notes immediately before the rally for Kennedy's use, but Kennedy refused Walinsky's notes, instead using some that he had likely written on the ride over; Mankiewicz arrived after Kennedy had already begun to speak. Prior to arriving at the rally, the Chief of Police in Indianapolis told Kennedy that he could not provide protection and that giving the remarks would be too dangerous, but Kennedy decided to go ahead regardless. Standing on a podium mounted on a flatbed truck, Kennedy spoke for just four minutes and fifty-seven seconds. Robert F. Kennedy was the first to inform the audience of the death of Martin Luther King, causing some in the audience to scream and wail. Several of Kennedy's aides were even worried that the delivery of this information would result in a riot. Once the audience quieted down, Kennedy acknowledged that many in the audience would be filled with anger. But then Kennedy went on: "For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill with -- be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man." These remarks surprised Kennedy aides, who had never heard him speak publicly of John F. Kennedy's death. Kennedy continued, saying that the country had to make an effort to "go beyond these rather difficult times," and then quoted a poem by the Greek playwright Aeschylus, on the theme of the wisdom that comes, against one's will, from pain. To conclude, Kennedy said that the country needed and wanted unity between blacks and whites, asked the audience members to pray for the King family and the country, and once more quoted the ancient Greeks. The speech was credited in part with preventing post-assassination rioting in Indianapolis where it was given, though there were riots in many other parts of the country. It is widely considered one of the greatest speeches in American history.