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Robert F Kennedy – The People’s Politican

admin — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 03:28:01 +0000

Robert F Kennedy’s speech, On the Mindless Menace of Violence, delivered on the night of 5 April, 1968 in the City Club in Cleveland, Ohio is truly a magnificent piece of rhetoric. Conveyed in the attractive, thick Boston accent with broad A’s and non-existent R’s; his voice remains steady, but with difficulty, suppressing the passion, fury and zeal that bubbles underneath. He was a man of his generation, emanating the spirit of the sixties, he embodied the Baby Boomer’s hopes – cessation of the Vietnam War, avocation of civil rights, tackling the establishment and ridding society of the ills of violence and poverty. Handsome and compelling with little, cute Ethel by his side, he stood amongst the people speaking with them, not to them. They were like two tiny sentinels of peace – they were so gripping. They made you believe, made you want to believe that togetherness was possible and that together nothing was impossible.

Deceptively he appeared small and fragile but make no mistake, Bobby was tough, he stood up David style to the Goliaths of corrupt unions, mafia, massive corporations, racism, poverty and foreign threats. He became Attorney General in 1960, not before or since as that office held such power and clear influence on areas of policy. Hoffa huffed and puffed bravado about his televised hearings with Bobby in the chair, but it was Hoffa squirming as the fresh faced Bobby refused to be intimidated or indeed be thrown a loop. He kept a cool head in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963, JFK looking to him for the advice that would ultimately sway him. The two brothers glancing into one another’s eyes and knowing what the other was thinking, this implicit trust was paramount in avoiding the unthinkable that the crisis threatened. He immersed himself in the promotion of the civil rights movement, influencing JFK in the process, persuading him of the urgency and importance of ensuring that civil rights was of primary significance. He was far removed from the little brother tag which some detractors had labelled him with.

However, it was JFK who brought him into the political arena, persuading him to leave an investigative position at the Department of Justice to organize his bid for the Senate. And indeed, following the tragic death of JFK, Bobby entered the Senate in 1964, to continue his brother’s work and vision. It changed him as a man, unusually, for the better. He immersed himself in the rough and tumble of street politics, meeting people at grass roots level. Initially, perhaps he did so to garner support, to cement his place in the Senate or he may even have had secret desires on the White House. However, it soon became apparent that he agreed with the people, he adopted the view that America had been derailed and that the time was now to straighten course. He stressed that concentration on the issues of inequality, injustice and lack of freedom was necessary; he implored a turning away from consumerism, greed and materialism. It led him to running for the Democratic Party nomination to run for the Presidency in the 1968 election, seeking to challenge his brother’s successor Lyndon B. Johnson. However, the chance to see this most interesting of politicians running America was cruelly extinguished. Robert F Kennedy was assassinated in the kitchens of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on the night that he won the Californian primary.
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Ralph Abernathy – Dr King’s Right-Hand Man

admin — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 17:45:53 +0000

Ralph Abernathy was the black man most recognized as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s second-in-command. It’s easy to see him being King’s Vice President, had the good doctor ever attained the White House. In his last speech on April 3, 1968, MLK said, “Ralph Abernathy is the best friend that I have in the world.” Abernathy’s family has stated he loved them dearly, and that he risked everything for the American Civil Rights Movement – hard as it was.

Abernathy had introduced him before King gave his last life’s speech. He was the first person out on the motel’s balcony when MLK was shot, and they went back to well before the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Abernathy was pastor of the First Baptist Church in Montgomery around 1951, and while living there, he formed a close and enduring partnership with Dr. King, who wasn’t famous until the years of the bus boycott. At the time, King was pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, also in Montgomery. He “hung out” with many other reverends and pastors, both black and white, during the course of his brief but firebrand and “righteous” political career. MLK’s church background was the core of his entire political thrust, as when he spoke he preached of “doing the right thing” at all times.

Abernathy was MLK’s right-hand man in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, as its Secretary-Treasurer. He assumed presidency of the SCLC upon King’s death. About a week after the assassination, Abernathy lead yet another march for the striking sanitation workers in Memphis, and in May of 1968, he, Jesse Jackson and others organized the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) March on Washington, D.C. They were hoping to bring attention to the problems of poverty-stricken people, and constructed huts in the nation’s capital, which caused a showdown with the police.

But Abernathy, being noted for his calmness and tendency to be “laid back,” slept in a hotel during this campaign. He was known to be fearless, but didn’t like having to deal with deprived conditions. He was a gentle, loving Christian gentleman, but wasn’t as happy to bend sometimes as his friend Dr. King. Abernathy’s daughter, Donzaleigh Abernathy, said her father really hated dealing with racism and its usual accompanying low circumstances. One time, when King’s and Abernathy’s families were living in poverty-stricken housing for blacks in order to see what it was like, Abernathy’s family left after staying there for only a week, while the King family continued living in “the Projects” for many months.

But on June 19, Abernathy gave a speech at the Lincoln Memorial in front of tens of thousands of King’s white and black supporters. Regardless, the PPC at Resurrection City soon fell apart, becoming an embarrassment to the Civil Rights Movement as rapes and robberies among the protestors began to increase. The lack of discipline after Dr. King’s death was showing; a deep and mournful ennui had sunk in, completely taking it over. The Movement had lost its best leader – her heart and soul was gone – canceled with the death of her brightest star and son.

The PPC’s goals were swiftly deemed “unrealistic,” not ones the public wanted to sanction. Abernathy lost control of the situation to more vivacious leaders like Jesse Jackson – and the government ended up moving in on Resurrection City on June 24, using force to disband the protestors. Abernathy was jailed for three weeks following the collapse of what had been meant as a tribute to the dead Dr. King – an attempt at his political “resurrection.” Abernathy never did make it when it came to replacing King as leader of the Movement, in spite of all the efforts he had made in assisting his dear friend along the way.
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The Ex-Presidents of the United States of America – Bill Clinton, Part One

admin — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 04:03:21 +0000

Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III in Hope, Arkansas, in 1946; his father died before he was born and he later took his stepfather’s name. His childhood home was a troubled one; his stepfather, a gambler and alcoholic, was abusive to his mother and stepbrother. When Bill was fifteen, he made it clear that he would mete out violence if the abuse continued.

The young Bill had a great love for music and tampered with the idea of being a saxophonist, but in 1963 he visited the White House as part of a delegation of the American Legion Boys’ Nation, met JFK and decided on a life of public service. With the aid of scholarships, Clinton attended the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington DC. At university, he became involved with the civil rights movement and the movement against the Vietnam war. In 1966, he worked as an intern for a summer in the offices of the Arkansas Senator J.

William Fulbright, who was at that time the leader of the anti-war movement in the Senate. He graduated from Georgetown University in 1968 with a B.S. in International Affairs, he was awarded a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University where he studied philosophy, economics and politics. He developed an interest in rugby union, playing for Oxford and later for Little Rock Rugby Club in Arkansas. In later life, he admitted to smoking cannabis but insisted that he did not inhale.

After Oxford, Clinton attended Yale Law School obtaining a Juris Doctor degree in 1973. While at Yale he met law student Hillary Rodham, they married in 1975 and their only child, Chelsea, was born in 1980.
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