[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 93 (Friday, June 6, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5358-S5359]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO ROBERT KENNEDY

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wish to talk just for a moment today 
about the cloture vote on climate change legislation earlier today, but 
first, while I am getting some charts together, I wanted to mention 
also that this is the 40th anniversary that was yesterday of the death 
of Robert Kennedy.
  I was driving to the Capitol listening to a news report about that 
day 40 years ago when Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles, 
CA, and I was thinking about the fact that I was a very young man back 
then working on the Robert Kennedy Presidential campaign in my State 
when I heard that he had been assassinated. It was such an unbelievable 
blow to me and to all of the others who worked on the campaign and to 
so many other Americans who believed his campaign for the Presidency 
held such great promise.
  Most young people in this country today know nothing about a 1968 
Presidential campaign by Robert F. Kennedy. It was an extraordinary 
time, and he was an extraordinary man. I wish to read just a couple of 
comments by the late Robert F. Kennedy, who was, by the way, a Senator 
and served in this body, as well as served as Attorney General of this 
country.
  He gave a speech once that I have often quoted. It was a speech he 
gave in South Africa. Many will know these words. In his speech he said 
this:

       Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of us 
     can work to change a small portion of the events, and in the 
     total of all these acts will be written the history of a 
     generation . . . it is from numberless diverse acts of 
     courage and belief that human history is thus shaped. Each 
     time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot 
     of others, or strikes out against injustice, they send forth 
     a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million 
     different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a 
     current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of 
     oppression and resistance.

  He gave that speech June 6, 1966, at the University of Cape Town in 
South Africa. People often talk about those ripples of hope that can 
sweep down the mightiest walls of resistance and oppression, and that 
passion and that dream and belief still exist today.
  I reread this morning the speech Robert Kennedy gave during his 
Presidential campaign in Indianapolis, IN, on the evening of April 4, 
1968, when Martin Luther King was assassinated. The crowd that had 
gathered for Robert Kennedy's appearance did not know that Dr. Martin 
Luther King had been assassinated and Robert Kennedy came to that area 
of Indianapolis. He was asked not to go because of concerns about his 
safety. He went anyway and he gave one of the most wonderful speeches. 
It was without a note, just an extemporaneous speech that had so much 
passion. I shall not read it today, but I ask unanimous consent that it 
be printed in the Record at this point.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       Ladies and Gentlemen--I'm only going to talk to you just 
     for a minute or so this evening. Because . . .
       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 in Memphis, Tennessee.
       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 day, 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 that there were white people who were 
     responsible--you can be filled with bitterness, and with 
     hatred, and a desire for revenge.
       We can move in that direction as a country, in 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 has 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 mistrust of the injustice of such an act, 
     against all white people, I would only say that I can

[[Page S5359]]

     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.
       But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have 
     to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather 
     difficult times.
       My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: ``Even in 
     our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon 
     the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes 
     wisdom through the awful 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, and a feeling 
     of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, 
     whether they be white or whether they be black.
       (Interrupted by applause)
       So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for 
     the family of Martin Luther King, yeah that's true, but more 
     importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of 
     us love--a prayer for understanding and that compassion of 
     which I spoke. We can do well in this country. We will have 
     difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past. And 
     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 that abide in our land.
       (Interrupted by applause)
       Let us 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 us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our 
     country and for our people. Thank you very much. (Applause)--
     Robert F. Kennedy, April 4, 1968.

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