RFK Speaks on the death of MLK
RFK Speaks on the death of MLK
Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Coretta Scott King sitting with her daughter, Bernice. Martin Luther King Jr.'s family; his two daughters, Bernice and Yolanda, his brother, Alfred Daniel Williams King, and his son, Martin Luther King III at funeral for Martin Luther King Jr.; predominantly adult African American men and women sitting behind family. Adult African American male pallbearers carrying coffin through a mixed crowd of African American and Caucasian adult men. U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) and his wife (Ethel) walking through a crowd of predominantly adult African American men; adult African American man leading the Kennedy's through crowd. Kennedy (off camera) speaking on the assassination of King in Indianapolis, Indiana: "Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort... For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. We have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times. My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black."