Speeches of Robert F. Kennedy
Speeches of Robert F. Kennedy
Speeches of Robert F. Kennedy
Speeches of Robert F. Kennedy
June 6,1966. Excerpt from Day Of Affirmation Address, Capetown South Africa. Robert Kennedy's (RFK, Robert Francis Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy) voiceover over images of: civil rights marchers, CUs of feet walking, MS airplane talking off, astronaut in space, cars on the highway, RFK shaking hands while campaigning, a space capsule orbiting the moon. "What is important however is that all nations must march toward increasing freedom; toward justice for all; toward a society strong and flexible enough to meet the demands of all of its people, whatever their race, and the demands of a world of immense and dizzying change. In a few hours, the plane that brought me to this country crossed over oceans and countries which have been a crucible of human history. In minutes we traced migrations of men over thousands of years; seconds, the briefest glimpse, and we passed battlefields on which millions of men once struggled and died. We could see no national boundaries, no vast gulfs or high walls dividing people from people; only nature and the works of man -- homes and factories and farms -- everywhere reflecting man's common effort to enrich his life. Everywhere new technology and communications brings men and nations closer together, the concerns of one inevitably become the concerns of all. And our new closeness is stripping away the false masks, the illusion of differences which is at the root of injustice and hate and war. Only earthbound man still clings to the dark and poisoning superstition that his world is bounded by the nearest hill, his universe ends at river's shore, his common humanity is enclosed in the tight circle of those who share his town or his views and the color of his skin."
Speeches of Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Kennedy speaks to an auditorium of college students at Columbia University in 1964. MS and CUs of Kennedy giving the speech. "As President Kennedy said, We have the capacity to make this the best generation in the history of mankind or to make it the last. I think that we can make it the best generation, but I think really it is going to rest with those who are educated, those people who are trained, whether they are going to participate or whether they are going to say this is the problem or responsibility of somebody else. I think that all of you have had the advantage of an education here, just as I had the advantage of an education, but we have a special and particular responsibility. Now look and analyze where our government came from, our system of government, where it originated. Think back to the Greeks and what their idea really was of participation, and what Pericles said in his funeral oration, We differ from other states in that we regard the individual who holds himself aloof from public affairs as being useless yet we yield to no one in our independence of spirit and complete self reliance. I think that is what has to guide us. In Greek the word idiot comes from that individual who didn t participate, who wasn t actively involved. President Kennedy s favorite quote was really from Dante that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserved their neutrality. If all of us, whether it is in the field of civil rights or housing or whether its in Vietnam or whatever it is, just hang back and say this is a problem of somebody else. If we are going to permit what is going on in Harlem now, if those young children grow up uneducated and untrained and dissatisfied with life and dissatisfied with their future and feeling that there is nothing in this system, then we re going to be in difficulty. Even if we look at this selfishly, we re going to be in difficulty, the whole system is going to be in difficulty. Sophocles said one time, 'What joy is there in day that follows day, some swift some slow with death the only goal. And really that s what many of our fellow citizens, whether they re in Appalachia or whether they re in Harlem or whether they re the white children who live in some of these other areas where there is no future, or even our elderly people over the age of 65 who feel that there is not any future for them and all they are going to do is die and get sick and go and have to take a pauper s oath, these I think are our responsibilities. These are your responsibilities just as they are mine. Now I hope I win as a United States Senator but even if I don t, I think that for all of us that we have an obligation, we have a responsibility. If we don t do it, then nobody s going to do it. And if educated people don t do it, then nobody s going to do it. The people that are going to make the difference for this country and for the world are educated people, and we have a special, not only responsibility but a special opportunity to make a difference in the world and to make a difference for this country and that s really what I come to say to you. I think of what Archimedes said explaining the lever and he said Show me where I can stand and I can move the world. And I think that we can. I think that we started it 3 and half years ago and I think that we can continue it. I don t think that it just a question of political belief, I think we can make a difference. So thank you."