Sunday, April 7, 2024 | 2 a.m.
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A sound. A firecracker, maybe.
That is what those who were there remember. There on that balcony in Memphis, 56 years ago this week.
The last sound.
Before the pain. Before the tears. Before the explosions.
Before Robert F. Kennedy, a U.S. senator from New York, stood on the back of a flatbed truck in Indianapolis, where he was slated to launch his campaign for the Indiana presidential primary.
His aides were not prepared. Local police could not promise to protect him.
Not on this night. This night of pain, tears and explosions.
Yet still, Kennedy stood and spoke to a gathering of mostly Black folks, most of whom had not yet heard what transpired at 6:05 p.m. Central time.
It was dark when Kennedy began to speak. With nary a note.
If you haven’t heard it in a while, listen to it, watch it. Today.
If you’ve never heard it before do the same. Today.
He spoke only five minutes. Here are his words — all of them:
I have some very sad news for all of you and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight.
Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult time for the United States, it’s perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.
For those of you who are Black, considering the evidence evidently is there were white people who are responsible, you can be filled with bitterness and with hatred and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, a greater polarization — Black people amongst Blacks and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another.
Or we can make an effort as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that is spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love. For those of you who are Black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust 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, he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States.
We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times. My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote:
“Even in our sleep, pain, which we cannot forget, falls drop-by-drop upon the heart until in our own deep despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awesome grace of God.”
What we need in the United States is not division. What we need in the United States is not hatred. What we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness. But is love and wisdom and compassion toward one another, a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country. Whether they be white or whether they be Black.
We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We’ve had difficult times in the past, we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence. It is not the end of lawlessness, and it’s not the end of disorder. But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of Black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.
Dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: “To tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.”
Let’s dedicate ourselves to that and say a prayer for our country and for our people. Thank you very much.
•••
Kennedy stepped down from the flatbed — 63 days later he was dead. Killed, too, by an assassin’s bullet.
On this day, as we remember the pain, the tears, the explosions of grief of a tragedy — in these divisive times — also recall Kennedy’s words. His call:
To tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.
Roy S. Johnson is a columnist for al.com.
