To many Americans, Robert F. Kennedy symbolized a bright and hopeful future. Tragically, one fateful night saw his life — and his political career — cut short in the blink of an eye.
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00:00To many Americans, Robert F. Kennedy symbolized a bright and hopeful future.
00:05Tragically, one fateful night saw his life and his political career cut short in the
00:10blink of an eye.
00:12In 1968, Robert F. Kennedy, also known as RFK, seemed the country's last chance at a
00:18promising future.
00:19In the Civil Rights era, the former U.S. Attorney General and candidate for the presidency built
00:24his platform around race reform and social justice issues.
00:28By doing so, RFK, who was the brother of the late President John F. Kennedy, sought
00:33to unite the economically underprivileged white working class and black Americans.
00:38RFK was killed by an assassin before those goals could play out, though.
00:42And for this reason, Kennedy, much like his brother after he was struck down by an assassin's
00:46bullet five years earlier, remains a symbol of what might have been.
00:50The people in the Democratic Party and the people in the United States want a change.
00:55On the night that he died, RFK had won the all-important California primary when, after
01:01giving a victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, the politician made
01:05his way to exit the building through the pantry area.
01:08Around that same time, then-busboy Juan Romero shook Kennedy's hand to congratulate him on
01:13the victory, when the White House hopeful was shot at close range.
01:17Pulling the trigger was 22-year-old Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian-born Jordanian citizen
01:23angered by Kennedy's perceived support of Israel.
01:26RFK died the next day, and in the chaos, five others were wounded before the shooter was
01:31tackled and disarmed.
01:32Speaking with the Los Angeles Times in 2015, Romero said,
01:37"...RFK's death made me realize that no matter how much hope you have, it can be taken away
01:42in a second."
01:43Bookended by the mystic Summer of Love in 1967 and the Woodstock concert of 1969, the
01:501968 presidential election in which RFK briefly ran for president as a Democrat took place
01:55during an especially catastrophic year for the United States.
01:58"...We all know the war is hell story."
02:00"...It is."
02:02The ongoing Vietnam War saw its highest casualty toll with the so-called Tet Offensive, a major
02:07blow to Western ego and foreign policy.
02:10Simultaneously, the threat of communism, in Asia and elsewhere, crept ever onward.
02:15After the Prague Spring, then-Czechoslovakia returned to the communist Soviet Union's oppressive
02:20rule and that April, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
02:25After MLK Jr.'s death, civil rights leader and future Georgia representative John Lewis
02:31said,
02:32"...With King gone, he felt as though he'd lost a friend, a big brother, a colleague."
02:38Lewis continued,
02:39"...I said to myself, well, we still have Bobby Kennedy."
02:43As a candidate, RFK sent an anti-war message that stood in contrast to the policies of
02:48then-President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
02:51RFK had famously feuded with LBJ and put himself forward for the Democratic nomination after
02:57Eugene McCarthy almost beat the incumbent president in an early primary.
03:02Ironically, LBJ served as Bobby's brother John F. Kennedy's vice president and likely
03:08only became president because of JFK's assassination.
03:11A short time after Kennedy's candidacy was announced, LBJ said he would no longer seek
03:16his party's nomination.
03:18The path to a Kennedy Democratic primary victory was far from a guarantee, as Politico pointed
03:23out in a 2018 piece.
03:25Only 15 states used the primary to choose their electors, while the rest were chosen
03:30by committees, and eventual party nominee Hubert H. Humphrey had practically unilateral
03:35support from them.
03:36On June 5, 1968, John Lewis' optimistic appraisal of Robert F. Kennedy still seemed reasonable,
03:43though Lewis didn't realize what was coming.
03:45To kill Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan concealed a .22 revolver rolled up in a campaign poster
03:50as he approached Kennedy.
03:52When RFK died, grief weighed heavily on the conscience of then-busboy Juan Romero, who
03:57cradled the senator's head and stuffed rosary beads into his hand as he lay dying.
04:02As he told the Los Angeles Times, he couldn't help but wonder if Kennedy would still be
04:07alive had he not stopped to shake his hand.
04:10Kennedy's tragic death was a major hit to the American psyche, pulling it from the edge
04:14of a brighter future back into chaos.
04:16Though Romero's life was but one of millions affected by the assassination, it is a particularly
04:21poignant reminder of the impact one person has on another.
04:25Hubert Humphrey easily secured the Democratic nomination for president.
04:29He lost the White House to Republican Richard Nixon in a contest that was closer than a
04:33lot of people recall.
04:35Nixon himself resigned from the presidency during his second term, adding a bit more
04:39division to an already fractured country.
04:42Sirhan was convicted of killing Kennedy and wounding five other people and sentenced to
04:46life in prison.
04:47In March 2023, Sirhan was once again denied parole.
04:52People still think back to what could have been with Robert F. Kennedy.