Robert Kennedy’s death did not extinguish the promise of America.

ROBERT KENNEDY

47 years ago today, Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down as he made his way from a stage at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, moments after winning the California Democratic primary. I had worked for him as a college intern the previous summer, and, like millions of others, saw in him the possibility for creating a new America that would end the Vietnam War and embrace social and economic justice. With his death, and the death two months before of Martin Luther King, Jr., the nation seemed to lose its heart. The war claimed more lives, on both sides. Our cities burned. Many in my generation gave up on peaceful social change. Some turned to violence; others dropped out. Mostly, we began to lose faith in the promise of America. To protect ourselves from utter despair we turned away from hope and toward cynicism. But cynicism is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Five months later, Richard Nixon was elected president.

No matter how dismal the world may look and no matter how hopeless it may seem, cynicism or despair invite only worse. Robert Kennedy’s death did not extinguish the promise of America. That promise lives on, in all of us.

Robert Reich

via Facebook.com

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