Robert F. Kennedy

:This is the most common use of RFK. For other uses, see RFK (disambiguation).

Presidential candidacy and assassination

Originally Kennedy had denied speculation that he was going to run for the Democratic nomination in 1968 against President Lyndon Johnson (The 22nd Amendment didn't disqualify LBJ from running for a second term because he served less than half of JFK's four-year term). Along with doubts of his ability to win the nomination, Kennedy feared that his candidacy would appear to be a product of a personal feud with Johnson. After Johnson won only a very narrow victory in the New Hampshire primary on March 12, 1968 against Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, an anti-war candidate, Kennedy too declared his candidacy for the Presidency on March 16. Two weeks later Johnson appeared on television to state that he was no longer a candidate for re-election.

Related Topics:
Lyndon Johnson - 22nd Amendment - New Hampshire primary - March 12 - 1968 - Eugene McCarthy - Minnesota - March 16

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On April 4, during a campaign stop in Indianapolis, Kennedy learned of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. During a heartfelt, impromptu speech in Indianapolis' inner city, Kennedy called for a reconciliation between the races. In the aftermath of King's murder, thousands of people were injured and 43 were killed in riots throughout the United States, but Indianapolis remained quiet. Kennedy's campaign relied largely on his ability to run an emotional and intensely personal campaign. Kennedy challenged students on the "hypocrisy" of draft deferments, visited numerous small towns, and made himself available to the masses, by participating in long motorcades and street-corner stump speeches (often in troubled inner-cities). Kennedy made urban poverty a chief concern of his campaign, which in part lead to enormous crowds that would attend his events in poor urban areas or rural parts of Appalachia.

Related Topics:
April 4 - Indianapolis - Martin Luther King, Jr. - Appalachia

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Kennedy won the Indiana and Nebraska Democratic primaries, but lost the Oregon primary. On June 4, 1968 Kennedy scored a major victory in his drive toward the Democratic presidential nomination when he won primaries in South Dakota and in California. After Kennedy addressed his supporters in the early morning hours of June 5 in a ballroom at the Ambassador Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, he left the ballroom through a service area to greet supporters working in the hotel's kitchen. In a crowded kitchen passageway, Sirhan B. Sirhan, a 24-year-old Los Angeles resident of Palestinian ancestry, fired a .22 caliber revolver directly into the crowd surrounding Kennedy. Several people were wounded, including Kennedy, who was shot in the head at close range. Kennedy never regained consciousness and died in the early morning hours of June 6, 1968 at the age of 42. A funeral mass was held at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City on June 8, during which his brother, Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy famously eulogized him with the words, "My brother need not be idolized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life. Be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it." Following the mass, Kennedy's body was transported by train to Washington, DC where he was buried near his brother, John, in Arlington National Cemetery.

Related Topics:
Indiana - Nebraska - Oregon - June 4 - 1968 - South Dakota - California - June 5 - Ambassador Hotel - Los Angeles - Sirhan B. Sirhan - Los Angeles - Palestinian - June 6 - Funeral mass - St. Patrick's Cathedral - June 8 - Massachusetts - Edward M. Kennedy - Washington, DC - Arlington National Cemetery

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Sirhan confessed to the shooting, and is currently serving a life prison sentence for the crime although to this day he claims he has absolutely no memory of shooting at Kennedy. It is generally believed that Sirhan fired the shots that hit Kennedy. As with his elder brother John's death, however, many have suggested the official account of RFK's murder is inconsistent or incomplete, and that his death was the result of a conspiracy. See Robert F. Kennedy assassination for more information.

Related Topics:
Conspiracy - Robert F. Kennedy assassination

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