, 06.06.2020 06:00 PM

Bobby

Fifty-two years ago today, he died. More than half a Century.

In my family, he was our uncrowned King. We were living in Dallas when they killed him, and I can still remember my Mom and Dad crying.

The bust on the right was found in an antique shop in Brighton, Ont. The photo on the left is of Bobby and his son Bobby Kennedy Jr., with whom I worked on an anti-tobacco file. On it, Bobby Jr. wrote: “Warren – see you on the barricades. Bobby Kennedy.”

Fifty-two years. So much would have been different – and so much better.



19 Comments

  1. Pedant says:

    Certainly more devastating than his brother’s murder. I still get chills whenever I see the footage of his speech at the California hotel only minutes before he was gunned down. He comes from a tradition in which people born into rich families understand they are lucky and feel they have a civic duty to improve the lives of those who are less lucky.

  2. barn E. rubble says:

    I noticed the ‘2 shooters’ theory is back in the news. Some troubling information I wasn’t aware of . . . Bobby Jr. apparently spoke with Sirhan.

  3. SmallTownON says:

    As I type this, I’ve just finished an explanation of his significance to my grade eight class. They’re watching a short bio, too.

    A great discussion on leadership is underway! All thanks to one my heroes; and a legacy of fairness, toughness, compassion and service that I am all too happy to share every June the 6th.

  4. libraman says:

    He had to be killed because he was going to try to get to the bottom of his brother’s death if/when he became president.

  5. PL says:

    Let us also not forget that 74 years ago to this day, 994 Canadian soldiers perished in Operation Overlord in the assault on Juno Beach on D-Day. President Kennedy was bravely captaining his patrol boat in the Pacific at the same time.

  6. Houland Wolfe says:

    Warren, you write “when they killed him”? I’ve always been puzzled by the last minute change in plans to go through the hotel kitchen where Sirhan Sirhan was waiting. Who decided that and why was never made clear. Then there is the evidence that at least one shot came from the rear. Subsequently, we got Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and the decline of the United States.

  7. Kinsey says:

    Exactly two years to the day before his death, RFK delivered a speech at the University of Cape Town, which contains this inspiring appeal for people to make the world a better place:

    “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends 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.”

  8. Gord says:

    The idea of noblesse oblige in the Western world died with him. Liberal Republicans and One Nation Tories gave way to Reagan (“Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”) and Thatcher, and we’ve been in a downward spiral ever since.

    • Mark says:

      Tough to go any way but downward after Reagan and Thatcher, two of the greatest world leaders of the 20th Century.

      • Terence says:

        Thatcher, a self-loathing working class person who literally took elocution lessons to erase her actual accent and Reagan, a B-movie actor who lost his marbles. Just the sort of people who would push simple prescriptions for a complex world while monied interests rubbed their hands and chuckeld in the backrooms.

        • Ronald O'Dowd says:

          Terence,

          Well, I hope one day in the next life I could lose my marbles like that and be elected twice President the way Reagan was. I didn’t agree with a lot of his policy but I loved that man. So did Tip O’Neill. Reagan was about as fundamentally decent a President as I’ve ever seen.

  9. As I’ve said before, how many of us, while lying there dying, would inquire if others were also hurt? That says it all about RFK.

  10. Jerry Todd says:

    Jeff Greenfield, then a speechwriter and advisor to RFK, has said he doesn’t think RFK would have won the nomination had he lived. He got in too late and was too far behind.

    Greenfield has also quoted RFK’s deep misgivings about the welfare state and its unintended consequences: “All the black man asks for is meaningful work. All we offer him is a check and the message that there is no meaningful work for him to do.” One of the most courageous (and accurate) political statements I know of.

  11. the real Sean says:

    I’ve attended two public lectures presented by Bobby Kennedy Jr. Both were on the environment. Best public speaker I’ve ever seen live and no teleprompter / power points.

  12. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Just imagine the power of the speech that RFK or MLK would be giving now in our subtly racist times in parts of the law enforcement community.

    They wouldn’t stand for any deliberate intimidation and overt threats made by the head of a police union. The cops in many places tried that one with camouflage pants (to protest contract negotiations) and in many jurisdictions, they quickly got put in their place by the mayor. Mayor and city councils in many cities said, OK, if you don’t respect municipal bylaws and regulations, you will be summarily terminated and many of them were fired.

    • The Doctor says:

      If MLK were alive today, Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, Judge Jeannine, Laura Ingraham et al. would be labeling him a terrorist.

Leave a Reply to Gord Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.