I woke up in the middle-of-the-night, which I never did at the tender age of 14. Something compelled me to turn on my transistor radio (yes, I am that old} that lay on the other twin bed that pushed up next to mine.
1968 was an angry time in America—the escalating war in Vietnam, the intensifying protests, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. People wanted change. RFK was a controversial candidate because not only did he oppose the Vietnam war but he openly criticized the incumbent president LBJ (unlike today, one did not do that). After winning every presidential primary he participated in, on June 5th, he claimed victory in the California primary and became “the man to beat.”
At approximately 12:15 a.m. he addressed his supporters in the ballroom of Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel. Leaving the hotel, as Kennedy went through the kitchen, shaking hands with various kitchen workers, a Palestinian-Jordanian man named Sirhan Sirhan pulled out a gun and shot Kennedy 3 times. Mortally wounded, Robert Kennedy died 26 hours later. Scholars believe that this was the first major incident of political violence in the United States.
After his funeral, nobody anticipated the millions of people who turned out to watch the funeral train as it went from New York City down to Washington, DC. “It was a long ride of grief and despair.” -David Eisenbach, Columbia University
Kennedy was buried at Arlington Cemetery, near his brother John.
In September, I returned to school.
Things would never be the same.
