40 years ago today, Presidential Candidate Robert Kennedy was shot. He died a day later on June 6, 1968. As we head into Campaign 2008, perhaps there are parallels to be made and lessons to be learned.
I wasn't alive at the time of the shooting, in fact my mother was only 10 years old.
It is hard for me to imagine what the country was going through at that time. They were still healing from the loss of his older brother, President John F. Kennedy. Plus the country was immersed in a losing war that was splitting the nation in two. Hundreds of troops were dying daily in Vietnam and the battleground at home wasn't much better.
Bobby Kennedy was supposed to be the solution. The man who would bridge together a country and end the war. We'll never know if he would have lived up to those expectations. We do know, a lot of hope was dashed on June 5th. We also know after Kennedy's assassination it took nearly 7 more years to end the war. We saw more violence, more protests, and the Kent State Massacre following his assassination.
Would those things have happened had Kennedy not been assassinated? There's no way to ever know.
Times got worse before they got better but the country eventually moved on. It took two assassinations, the end of the Vietnam War, and the fall of a "crooked" Presidency, but things eventually got better.
If anything as we continue into this current election we can take away lessons from the past. If anything we can have hope that things will get better. It doesn't matter who is elected as long as change is on the horizon.
As the seemingly endless war continues and economic times get tougher, just remember we've braved it before.
1 comment:
On this anniversary of Robert Kennedy’s assassination, it becomes apparent that it was unity and hope that allowed our nation to weather these storms that ProducerBecky mentions in her blog. President Gerald Ford helped us move on, though he paid the political price for his decisions, while Ronald Reagan gave us the hope that we could recover from these tests of our nation. As we enter the post-primary election season, I hope we can remember that together with strong leadership and the great American spirit, we can unite, strengthening our resolve to remain the example of a growing, thriving democracy to the world.
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