DARK DAYS, 52 YEARS APART...
June 5, 2020
June 5, 1968...
The first news story that really stands out as an intense personal memory for me was the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. Maybe it was because it happened just a few days after my fifth birthday, I don't know. I do have vague recollections of the assassination of Martin Luther King earlier that same year, and as young as I was at the time I was old enough in that instance to understand that something terrible had happened. But it was Bobby's murder that made me, at such a young age, a news watcher.
As I grew older and more socially aware and began studying about both MLK and the Kennedy brothers, I happened upon the text of the speech Bobby gave in Indianapolis on the night King was murdered. A few things about that speech struck me, and have stayed with me over the years.
The first was the way Bobby set aside concerns from his aides and from local police about the reaction of the crowd who had gathered to hear him speak when they learned of MLK's death. That shooting had happened just a short time before and Kennedy learned of it just as he was preparing to speak; most if not all in the audience that night learned about King's death from Kennedy.
And his words in response to their grief and anger are as important to Bobby's legacy as "Ask not what your country can do for you" is to the legacy of his older brother:
"For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I 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 go beyond these rather difficult times."
Bobby went on to share what has become one of his his best-remembered remarks: "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 or lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice towards those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black."
News footage of the time shows that the crowd exploded in applause and enthusiasm response to RFK's remarks, then dispersed quietly. And while there were riots throughout other parts of the nation that terrible night, history shows that Indianapolis remained calm - in no small part because of the impromptu remarks Bobby Kennedy delivered in place of the speech he'd planned to give before learning of King's murder.
And now I look around at everything that's going on today, and wonder what Bobby would have made of it all...
There are some who argue that perhaps we might not be in this place if Bobby Kennedy hadn't been killed. They say the same thing about his brother John. About Martin Luther King Jr. About Abraham Lincoln. The sad truth is, we can only speculate about such things.
I remember the night that Barack Obama was first elected to serve as president. I was proud of America that night. And on the week Obama was sworn into office I even wrote a letter to my sons - which saw print as my newspaper column on Jan. 15, 2009 - in which I tried to explain to Joshua and William just how significant an event this particular presidential inauguration actually was.
I ended that letter by saying, "I can only hope and pray that, as we watch together the events that will unfold in the coming days, you gain some sense of understanding of your particular place in history - and then do everything you can to make the most of it."
On a cold January morning in 2009 I felt a renewed sense of optimism. Today, on a miserably hot June afternoon, that optimism has been replaced by anger, fear, dread, and a growing sense that we may be witnessing the end - not of the world, necessarily, but of the Founding Fathers' grand experiment.
And it makes me want to cry.
(Copyright © 2020 by John Allen Small)
Posted by John Allen Small. Posted In : Reminiscence
John A. Small is an award-winning newspaper journalist, columnist and broadcaster whose work has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He and his wife Melissa were married in 1986; they have two sons, Joshua Orrin (born 1991) and William Ian (born 1996).
Mr. Small is the News Editor and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, OK. He obtained his nickname, "Bard of the Lesser Boulevards," from a journalism colleague - the late Phil Byrum - in recognition of the success of his popular newspaper column, "Small Talk." (In addition to the many awards the column itself has received over the years, a radio version of "Small Talk" earned an award for "Best Small Market Commentary" from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1998.)
John was born in Oklahoma City in 1963; lived in the Bradley-Bourbonnais-Kankakee area of Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony); then returned to his native state in 1991, where he currently resides in the Tishomingo/Ravia area. He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais in 1991. The years between high school and college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something.
In addition to his professional career as a journalist he has published two short story collections: "Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West" (2007), a collection of western stories; and "Something In The Air" (2011), a more eclectic collection. He was also a contributor to the 2005 Locus Award-nominated science fiction anthology "Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe," edited by Win Scott Eckert. In additon he has written a stage play and a self-published cookbook; served as project editor for a book about the JFK assassination entitled "The Men On The Sixth Floor"; and has either published or posted on the Internet a number of essays, stories and poems.
He has also won writing awards from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Library of Poetry. He is a past president of the Johnston County Chamber of Commerce in Tishomingo; was a charter member and past president of the Johnston County Reading Council, the local literacy advocacy and "friends of the library" organization; served as Johnston County's first-ever Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator in 1994-95; served two terms as chairman of the Johnston County (OK) Democratic Party; and has taught journalism classes for local Boy Scout Merit Badge Fairs. He is a member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society.
