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| Photo by Boris Yaro in the LA Times, June 1968 |
Another painful day of remembering 1968.
June 5. Bobby Kennedy lying on the floor with a young busboy kneeling at his side.
50 years later, Juan Romero is 67 and still dealing with the feeling that if only he had done something differently, Kennedy would not have died.
Thank you to Steve Lopez for his full-page interview and portrait of that busboy--and for his snapshot of the hope we had in that year, before the two murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and RFK.
https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-rfk-busboy-20180602-story.html
"Romero was tortured for years," writes Steve.
Steve also quotes part of the speech given by Bobby Kennedy in San Jose earlier in 1968.
“And if there is one overriding reality in this country, it is the danger that we have an erosion of a sense of national decency,” Kennedy said. “Make no mistake. Decency is at the heart of the matter.… Poverty in this country is indecent. Illiteracy is indecent. The death or maiming of brave young men in the swamps of Asia, that is also indecent.
“It is also indecent for a man to work with his back and with his hands in the valleys of California without hope of ever seeing his son enter a university.… It is indecent for the best of our young people to be driven to alienation and … the terrible exile of drugs and violence, to allow their hearts to wither in rage and with hatred.
“This in my judgment in the year 1968 is a time to create, not to destroy. This is a time for men to work … with a sense of decency and not with bitterness. This is a time to begin again, and that is why I run for president of the United States.”
Three months later, Kennedy was gone. Later that year, Richard Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey for the presidency.
What a fine president RFK would have been! What a contrast to the poor excuse for a president we have today.
How low we have fallen in electing a liar who opposes many of the things Bobby Kennedy stood for and died for.
See also "The Assassination of Robert Kennedy, as told 50 years later" by Colleen Shalby with photos:
http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-robert-f-kennedy/
and
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-lopez-kennedy-busboy-pictures-photogallery.html
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