Reply #38: RFK's death was a week before I graduated from high school

[MikeH]

I remember that 1968 was a very tumultuous year, both for our nation and in the world, and for me personally. I had many problems in high school, even during my senior year and right before I graduated. I was dealing with a lot of personal issues and personal unhappiness at the time, and all the turmoil I heard about in our nation and the world at the time helped to add to my anxiety.

I remember my dad waking me up on the morning of the 5th telling me that Robert Kennedy was shot, and the next morning him telling me that Kennedy had died.

It would be much later that I would come to fully appreciate the significance of what we had lost with the death of RFK, and the earlier deaths of Martin Luther King and of JFK. Even if RFK did not become president, I am sure he would have been a strong voice for social justice.

Even though there was a lot of turmoil that year there was also reason for hope. As it turned out we later ended up with Nixon that year, and then with Reagan in 1980 and for the most part the triumph of the right wing and the wealthy elite during the time since.

At the time I considered the assassinations of JFK, MLK, and RFK to be random events by lone gunmen; now I would have a very hard time believing that that would be true of all of the assassinations.