Teen Dead, Officers Injured In Shooting, Community Sorrow

Thank you for that extended quotation, Pete.

Those words were spoken on April 4, 1968, on the Near Northside of Indianpolis. RFK was campaigning in Indiana that day for the primary to be held a month later. The park where he spoke is close to both of the houses I lived in during my 23 years in Indy. It is one of the most sacred places on the map of my life.

Video and text of RFK speech.
http://kennedykingindy.org/#thespeech-section

I often use RFK’s Aeschylus quotation in condolence notes.

RFK’s address, witnessed by hundreds of Hoosiers but recorded by two just journalists — one local radio reporter and one local television videographer as the Indy dailies’ newsrooms were under orders from the publisher to ignore RFK — is counted among the finest extemporaneous speeches in U.S. history. We will observe the 50th anniversary of the speech, as well as the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination, next April 4th, 2018.

People arriving at the park that night for the planned RFK presidential rally were just hearing of MLK’s death. News did not travel fast in those days. Many people came prepared to cheer Bobby Kennedy to victory in the Indiana primary, as crowds had done earlier that day in Fort Wayne and Muncie. Instead, RFK shocked the crowd with news that MLK had been shot and died in Memphis. In the recordings, you can hear campaign cheers, whoops, and hollers subside as RFK’s sad news permeates the consciousness of the crowd.

That night changed the lives of Hoosiers I came to know during my years as a New Englander living in Indiana, 1983-2006.
— Julia Carson, age 29, became district director for U.S. Rep. Andy Jacobs Jr. She was also a business executive, a clothing retailer, and a state senator from Indianapolis. As he announced his retirement, Andy Jacobs (maybe the finest congressional rep I have known) anointed Julia to succeed him. She ran, won, and became the first African-American and first woman to represent Indianapolis in Congress. Her nephew, Andre Carson, holds that congressional seat today. He is one of two Muslims serving in the Congress.
— Ted Boehm, also age 29, committed his life to public service. He retired from 14 years as a justice on the Indiana Supreme Court.
— Rozelle Boyd was a young school teacher at the rally. That fall, he won election as the first African-American on the Indianapolis City-County Council and served as Democratic caucus leader for decades.
— Paul Cantwell was at various times a Marion County commissioner, city council representative, state legislator, and another aide to Rep. Jacobs. His daughter, Maria Cantwell, moved to Seattle and serves today as United States Senator from Washington State.
— Billie Beaux, a young teacher, became an advocate for hiring African-American teachers into Indianapolis schools and integrating the public school faculty. She became a longtime state legislator and later the Marion County auditor.
— William Crawford was a young postal worker. He quit his job after MLK’s death and RFK’s speech, taking up community organizing for the Black Radical Action Project. He was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives, serving 40 years from 1972 to 2012. His leadership and influence were extraordinary.
— Theresa Lubbers is the only Republican on this list. She attended the rally while a college student. Inspired by RFK, she became a high school English teacher and then served Richard G. Luga,r first in Lugar’s mayoral staff and then as deputy press secretary when Lugar, also a Republican, was elected to the United States Senate. She is now Commissioner of Higher Education in Indiana.
— RFK’s staff at the Indianapolis rally included John Lewis, now U.S. representative from Georgia; and Frank Makiewicz, who was RFK’s press secretary and went on to lead the Peace Corps and National Public Radio. He also directed Senator George McGovern’s 1972 campaign for the presidency.

On May 14, 1994, President Bill Clinton went to the site, now named “Martin Luther King Park,” to break ground for a monument to peace. Funded by the foundation of the Indiana Pacers NBA team, the monument would be constructed of the metal resulting from melting guns confiscated by Indianapolis Police. The groundbreaking was attended by U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy; RFK’s widow, Ethel Skakel Kennedy; and two sons of MLK: Dexter Scott King and Martin Luther King III.

I was also there that day.

The memorial from the melted guns was created by a 33-year-old Hoosier artist and features silhouettes of RFK and MLK reaching out to each other, but not quite able to touch. The path through the memorial takes visitors between the two leaders, filling the space that they cannot fill because their hands don’t touch.

One of my dreams for Bridgeport is that the Park City would also melt down guns confiscated from criminals and use the resulting molten metal to cast our own monument to peace — at Baldwin Plaza, at Seaside Park, at McLevy Green, or perhaps in a park located in a place where one day — as RFK did in Indianapolis — sudden and unexpected violence that shears the hearts of the community might be renounced in the strongest, poetic, and most inspirational of terms, as RFK did. Perhaps that has not yet happened in Bridgeport. You tell me.

What would such a monument represent? What would it look like?I I leave that to the artists and visionaries of tomorrow. I’d just like to look at it and see hundreds of pounds, if not tons, of metal formed from melting down guns no longer in our community.

Resources:
Kennedy-King Memorial Initiative, now preparing for next year’s 50th anniversary observances of MLK’s death and RFK’s death.
http://www.KennedyKingIndy.org
Wikipedia’s excellent article on “Landmark for Peace Memorial,” including photos of the memorial
Map showing location of MLK Park and Kennedy-King Landmark for Peace Memorial on Near Northside of Indianapolis, Indiana
https://www.evernote.com/l/ABFtzBM0Pg9BOLEpXq17qrURErzR2s2BUxg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landmark_for_Peace_Memorial