I’m sure there’s a fair number of you here who remember 1968 pretty vividly. Of course, some weren’t born yet, some were toddlers, and most of those a bit older still had no idea what was going on.
But I remember because, among other things, it was the first year I was eligible to vote. Not the 18 year old thing, in those days you had to be 21. And my birthday was only a very few days before the cut off to be eligible for the November election.
Because I would be 21 in time, however, of course I got to vote in the June primary. And so it was that on June 4th of that year I cast my very first vote for a presidential candidate.
A few hours later, Just after midnight, the man I had voted for was shot. He was declared dead on June 6th.
Do most of you have any idea what it feels like to have the person you had just voted for murdered like that?
Can you even imagine the anguish of young people like myself who had experienced the death of Martin Luther King Jr. only a few months before? And who lived through the assassination of RFK’s brother during our senior year of high school not even 5 years before that? And who had lost brothers, classmates, friends, in VietNam? (And yes, one of my classmate’s names is on the VietNam Memorial.)
Did you realize some of our friends had fathers who had PTSD from WWII? Although they didn’t call it that in those days, it still caused the pain so many today know from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The father of the late kossack specsf came back with what they used to call “shell shock.” It created a lot of family trauma and a divorce, as well as acute alcoholism.
Another friend’s father had been in a German POW camp and never got over that experience. The scars of that war, as well as the mostly forgotten Korean War, were very real for us, although you young’uns might not have realized that.
But in April of 1968 Bobby Kennedy came to San Francisco, a mere two weeks after the death of Martin Luther King Jr., the whole country still in shock.
He held a rally at the University of San Francisco. I managed to make it into the packed gymnasium, full of enthusiastic young people like myself getting ready to vote for the very first time in June.
I was one of the lucky ones who managed to get to the edge of the stage and reach up and shake Bobby Kennedy’s hand. I was so thrilled!
Less than two months later I cast my ballot. That evening, as I was preparing for a philosophy final and watching the election results, shortly after Bobby made his victory speech, a heart-stopping announcement was made.
Bobby Kennedy had been shot!
It was the beginning of the end. We thought we had been through it all, but no. One more time we had to hear about the assassin and the circumstances and the autopsy and the funeral.
And then came the awful Chicago Democratic Convention with its “police riot” and convention attendees getting beaten.
In the end, the trauma became even worse. Hubert Humphrey, a decent man, got the Democratic nomination, for all the good it did. We then went through the even worse trauma of having to deal with Richard Nixon for the better part of two terms, with VietNam extended instead of stopped. Then even more war protests, and my good friend ending up in Federal prison because he helped destroy draft records so young men of color wouldn’t be sent off to die in VietNam.
What am I trying to say ? I’m not sure I even know. The political PTSD so many of us have already experienced is so horrible that it’s a wonder some of us can even function in an election year. I’m sure that applies to every single one of us who experienced election night 2016.
What I do know is, not Covid or the murder of George Floyd, or anything else we’re going through can be allowed to stop us from getting to the other side of this mess.
We absolutely must win this election, we must take back the Senate, and keep the House, and do everything we can to reclaim the America we hope can exist someday. Because we know that dream is still only a dream for far too many of us.
Deja vu? Yes, and worse in so many ways.
The very existence of this country is at stake. We must do everything we can to live up to Bobby Kennedy’s dream for us, his dream of equality and peace and all those other things that we keep getting told can’t happen. He himself learned and changed over time, as must we all. Can anyone forget how he provided leadership and comfort in Indianapolis after the death of MLK so very shortly before his own demise? His dedication to immigrant rights?
And we can, if we but believe, support one another, and act before it’s too late— AND make sure everyone participates in the Census, as well as voting. The Census will determine our future for at least the next 10 years, giving and taking Congressional seats based on population, the distribution of Federal funds for schools and infrastructure and healthcare, among many other things.
So vote, in person or by mail, and make sure all your friends and relations are registered and participating in this truly most important election of our lifetime.
Whether our country survives, that’s quite literally what is at stake in November.
Those of us who lived through 1968 need your support, your community involvement, and your promise that all the struggles so many of us have gone through will not have been in vain.
We are, indeed, all in this together.