Continuing, Kennedy was straightforward with the people of Indianapolis. Describing the road that may lay ahead, in an era without the leadership of Dr. King. Seizing the moment, Kennedy told them the truth, unvarnished. Illuminating that, “In this difficult day... it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in… 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.. to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence” (Eidenmuller). This crucial message of understanding, compassion, and love that changed the action of the people of Indianapolis has never been more consequential than today.
As I sit here writing, just mere days after the events of January 6 when groups of anti-semitic, racist, and politically right-wing extremists perpetrated a dastardly terrorist attack on our nation’s capital, in the process damaging our countries values. This siege on our temple of democracy was an attempt to derail our national quest for unity and our journey toward social justice. It makes one wonder “whatever happened to the values of humanity” ("Where Is the Love? Lyrics.").
In light of these ghastly events, I believe we should rededicate ourselves to what Robert F. Kennedy once said so many years ago, “we have to make an effort in the United States… [to] go beyond these rather difficult times… 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” at no time in our nation’s history has this held more truth and been more valid (Eidenmuller). Those words which carried so much weight back in 1968, somehow seem to hold even more weight today, in 2021. Especially, in a time where we truly need the light to prevail over the darkness.