Meaning It: Sen. Robert F. Kennedy @ An Indianapolis Daycare-AUGMENTED
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- čas přidán 25. 08. 2024
- [NOTE: Additional footage has been added to the beginning of this video since its original posting on July 3, 2010. -- PL.]
On April 30, 1968, New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, then running for the Democratic party's presidential nomination, interrupted his Indiana campaign schedule to visit the Day Nursery Association of Indianapolis (www.daynursery....) at 542 Lockerbie St., near the museum home of poet James Whitcomb Riley, the "Hoosier Keats."
Kennedy had an extraordinary relationship with children and his touching encounter with those at the daycare was memorialized by photographers, television and print reporters, including the talented David Murray, whose article, "Poignant Lull in RFK Campaign," was published in the "Chicago Sun-Times" on May 1, 1968, excerpted below:
"At first, there was no joy at all on the faces of the dozen or so five year olds in the tiny, dirty playground at the day nursery.
"They stared with wide, solemn eyes through the old Cyclone fence topped with drooping barbed wire at Robert F. Kennedy, who had walked a hundred feet down the street Tuesday to see them as they stood in their cage.
"Tentatively, they poked their fingers at him through the fence, and he pushed his fingers back at them and there was a smile or two, on both sides. But the children didn't quite know what to make of this man who was surrounded by all the other people with the cameras and microphones and tape recorders and notebooks.
"When he started talking to them, you could hardly hear what he said, it was so soft, and his eyes changed from those of a presidential candidate to something else. And he kept talking and stroking their fingers with his, and then one little boy said: 'Hey, you're on television, aren't you?' and Kennedy nodded and said yes, he was.
"The place was the Day Nursery Association of Indianapolis, and it lies in a grubby section only a few steps away from James Whitcomb Riley's house. Kennedy had gone to the Riley house as part of his campaign for the presidency. ...
"Kennedy ... walked in the bright sunlight to the day nursery and talked for a minute with the women who run it. They said it was mostly for children of broken homes and that the ones here were all five-year-olds from different parts of the city.
"So Kennedy stopped with the children for a minute, and after they got to know him a bit better, the man who wants to be president pushed open a gate and went inside and hunkered down and talked to them some more. The television cameras and microphones were there, but that didn't make any difference to the children.
"Some of them continued to slide down the sliding board or climb on the jungle gym, but the others clustered around Kennedy, not saying much, some of them, but just trying to hold on to him.
"Two little girls came up and put their heads against his waist and he put his hands on their heads. And suddenly it was hard to watch, because he had become in that moment the father they did no know or the elder brother who couldn't talk to them or, more important, listen to them, because most elder brothers and most fathers don't know how to listen to five year olds without thinking about other things. ...
"Gone, for just a moment, was the rhetoric and the playing with audiences and the motorcades and the adulation and the criticism.
"The word that came on strongest as he sat and listened to the children and made a quiet remark now and then, was the word 'compassion.' This is because - and anyone who has ever dealt with five-year-olds knows this - you can fool a lot of people in a campaign, and you can create phony issues if you want to, and you can build an image with a lot of sharpsters around you with their computers and their press releases. But lonely little children don't come up and put their heads on your lap unless you mean it."
Among the reporters covering Kennedy's visit was "Newsweek" general editor and writer Peter Goldman, who could be seen wearing sunglasses and a bow-tie at left (00:25). Kennedy was assassinated at Los Angeles, Calif., five weeks later.
NOTE: An informative and insightful response to this video by Peter Goldman, posted on July 4, 2010, could be found in five parts in my Channel Comments by clicking on my user name above.
(Videos Courtesy "Children of Promise: The Legacy of Robert F. Kennedy" [Investigation Discovery, May 20, 2011, narrated by Mandy Patinkin] and NBC News from ThoughtEquity.com)
The best president we never had.
I’ve been obsessed with RFK since high school. Reading and learning about him is what drew me to politics. He’s one of my political heroes.
I'm in tears. This is so sweet.
This is so sweet! Bobby was incredible 💔
NOOO...this breaks and melts my heart
Paul, thank you so much for all your videos on RFK. I am a high school senior who loves history and has always been drawn to the civil rights movement. This last month I have been trying to learn as much as I can about the Kennedys, especially Bobby. Watching your videos I just feel a tremendous loss in my heart. Bobby cared so much about the people and would have been an amazing president...I feel that his death was a tremendous extinguishing of hope...in our current divided and turbulent times, his words still ring true. I can't help thinking that our country would have been in a much better state had RFK become president. I've never cared as much about a politician as I have Bobby
I wish we could find these kids.
Child - 'Where you goin?'
Bobby - "Oh I don't know, to see grown ups I think, that's not as much fun"
Me - 😍
I love this so much! What an incredibly loving human being. ❤️🌿✨
Thanx.
Dig it. Thanx.