50 years after darkness of 1968, young people give us new hope

BY MIKE MCCURRY, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 06/04/18 08:00 AM EDT 0 THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

We are remembering several 50 year anniversaries in 2018 but, for me, none is more poignant than June 4, the day five decades ago that Robert F. Kennedy won the California Democratic presidential primary and was shot and killed that night following his victory celebration.

I was an eighth grade student at John F. Kennedy Middle School on the San Francisco peninsula and had enjoyed my very first taste of presidential politics. I woke up early that day and went out in the dark to hang ballot reminders on doors in my precinct. My parents let me stay up late to watch RFK’s victory speech, which I cheered.

My classmates and I were divided and debated the merits of Bobby versus Gene McCarthy, but I was a Kennedy guy through and through. I went to bed a happy kid. The next morning, my parents, who had stayed up late, quietly came in and told me Senator Kennedy had been shot and was lingering near death. I believe that was my wake up call for the cost and joy of being committed to political activism.

It reminds me of what one of my future bosses, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, said to Washington columnist Mary McGrory upon news of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, “Mary, to be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart.” Yes, McGrory apparently said, “But we’ll never laugh again.” To which Moynihan said, “Oh Mary, we will laugh again. We’ll just never be young again.”

Admittedly, those are all paraphrases, but they capture something that I think about a lot these days. In 1968 and beyond, those of us who are now aging baby boomers entered politics and public service determined to make a difference and commit ourselves to working within our political system to achieve changes we believed would make America better, maybe even great, again.

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http://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/390489-50-years-after-darkness-of-1968-young-people-give-us-new-hope