“For anyone to achieve something, they will have to show a little courage. You’re only on this earth once. You must give it all you’ve got.” – Ethel Kennedy, wife and best friends and partner of the late Senator Robert F. (‘Bobby’) Kennedy
A Brief Commentary by Doug Draper, who came of age inspired by the last few years in the life of Bobby Kennedy
Posted October 11th, 2024 on Niagara At Large
Ethel Kennedy, just to the left of her husband, Senator Robert Kennedy, declaring a primary victory in his race for the U.S. presidency, just moments before he was assassinated.
For those of us who were old enough to watch it on our television sets, it was one of those nights that, even all these years later, is hard to ever forget.
It was the night in June of 1968 when U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy – known more affectionately to millions as “Bobby”- entered a banquet room in The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles with his wife Ethel, both of them wearing big smiles as he accepted his victory in the California primary during his run for President of the United States.
At that moment, for those who saw him as a ray of hope for social and racial justice and for bringing peace to the world, starting with his promise to end the war costing so much death and destruction in Vietnam at the time , there were tears of jubilation.
Ethel Kennedy, wife of the Senator Robert ‘Bobby’ Kennedy and a social activist in her own right, as many may remember her
Then, minutes later, there was the terrible news that he was shot by a lone gunman as he was leaving the hotel through a kitchen.
Ethel Kennedy who died this October 10th, 2024 at age 96, was at his side that awful night and expressed the anguish we all felt as the blood began running out of a wound in his head.
She was, by all accounts, his loving partner, best friend and strongest supporter, and every year for as many years as she could she visited his grave on the anniversary of his assassination to pray and lay flowers.
And for as long as she lived, his spirit lived on with her. May it live on in all of us who do our part to make this world better and more just for all.
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RIP Ethel Kennedy
Speaking of her husband Bobby being viewed by so many, including this young kid at the time, as a ray of hope, I will leave you with these words from a 1966 address he delivered in South Africa. In that address, he spoke passionately for the freedom and democratic rights of all people and spoke against racial oppression and that nation’s now-defunct system of apartheid. (And I am sure that if he were to deliver those same inspiring words today, he would amend them to say “a man and a woman.” –
“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 centres of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
Those words are still featured prominently on a wall where I do my writing. – Doug Draper, Niagara At Large
A related piece on the death of Ethel Kennedy from the Los Angeles Times that you can read by clicking on – https://www.latimes.com/obituaries/story/2024-10-10/ethel-kennedy-dead
To visit the home page for the Robert F. Kennedy Centre for Human Rights, click on – https://rfkhumanrights.org/
(A Brief Footnote from Doug Draper at Niagara At Large – If some of NAL’s regular readers are wondering why one version of this post disappeared and this one popped up, I mistakenly, to my embarrassment , posted a version that was an early draft loaded with typos and incomplete sentences. I hate it when that happens and I apologize for any confusion.)
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“A Politician Thinks Of The Next Election. A Leader Thinks Of The Next Generation.” – Bernie Sanders
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