The evening of April 4, 1968 will live in infamy.
On that day, the renowned civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, by James Earl Ray.
The next day, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy (the younger brother of John F. Kennedy) delivered a short speech to the city of Cleveland, Ohio, in an attempt to quell the violent backlash as a result of King’s death.
Kennedy’s speech is titled “The Mindless Menace of Violence,” and his words are just as profound as they were nearly 60 years ago.
I bring this up because of the similar times we’re living in, and how many surprisingly — or maybe unsurprisingly — similar comparisons can be witnessed between the six decades that have passed.
We live in a backward time. Life, societal rules and the access to liberty have been subject to a multitude of changes since ’68. Race is becoming less and less of a social factor, people are free to marry whomever it is that they love and equality is reaching more people than ever before.
However, there is still a line in the sand. There are still major forms of injustice. There are still countless reports of abuse, oppression and harassment dealt out to people from all walks of life. I do believe, generally, that people judge color more than character, but the victims of injustice are not members of a specific race. As Kennedy points out, injustice can be found in every environment of life.
“The victims of violence (and/or injustice) are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown,” Kennedy said. “They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved, and needed.”
How can that be? How could we have possibly progressed so far, yet seemingly have gone nowhere? Because, deep down in our cultural values, we refuse to learn a new way of handling adversity.
The process we use to enact change is the same as it’s always been, in my opinion. When something unpopular happens it’s usually followed by protests, violent riots and pandering to political figures promising reform.
These innate reactions to adversities are often useless in the long run because they are always in pursuit of the issue. There is no such thing as a preemptive strike in terms of social justice.
Things only begin to change when there is a sufficient catalyst such as a gross misuse of power coming to light, or a civil rights activist being murdered on his hotel balcony. Believing things may only change after an atrocity is committed is a fundamentally flawed state of mind.
This sentiment only leads to responses made in the heat of passion, instead of in a calm, objective and logical state of mind, ultimately ending with unsatisfying compromises that are equivalent to a Band-Aid on a knife wound. We never learn from mistakes, we only learn to prolong finding a suitable solution for another half-century.
“Too often we honor swagger, bluster and the wielders of force, too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others,” Kennedy said. “Some Americans who preach nonviolence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have, by their own conduct, invited them.”
Kennedy continues to break down America’s social etiquette that addresses values we hold ourselves, and the values we’d like to pass on to the next generation in a way that advocates for understanding and acceptance.
“We must admit in ourselves that our children’s future cannot be built on the misfortune of others,” Kennedy said. “We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled nor enriched by hatred — violence breeds violence, (and) repression breeds retaliation.”
Kennedy understood that American citizens have made mistakes in the past, and are continuing to make mistakes. He believed America could not continue its current path, and that doing so would surely lead to our demise. However, and most importantly, he believed change was not unattainable. He believed, with the company of great leaders, that America could emerge from the depths it had sunken to.
I will concede that such questions of morality, politics and social justice are beyond my ability to answer. However, I refuse to let the words of such a wise man fall on deaf ears — even if it takes another 60 years for anybody else to hear his words.
Andrew Ward can be reached at [email protected]