AHTER 1968 R F Kennedy Announcement of M L Kin

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening because I have Some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens And people who love peace all over the world And that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are, and what direction we want to move in.

For those of you who are black, considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible, you can be filled with bitterness and with hatred and a desire for revenge, we can move in that direction as a country and greater polarization, black people amongst blacks and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another.

Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that is spread across our land, with an effort to understand compassion and love. For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act against all white people, I

would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I am a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond or go beyond