Summer of '68: The Season That Changed Baseball--And America--Forever by Tim Wendel
Authors: Tim Wendel
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front. Yet as the reports of rioting came in, the president realized that any political momentum he had gained in recent days was now lost forever.
In Indianapolis, presidential candidate Robert Kennedy was about to speak from the back of a flatbed truck to a predominately black crowd at a campaign stop when he received the news that King had been assassinated. In what would later be looked back on as the second of two extraordinary speeches in as many days, and a stunning example of the healing power that words can offer, Kennedy told his audience about King’s death. For most of them it was the first they had heard of the tragic news.
After asking many in the crowd to lower their signs, Kennedy said, “I have some very sad news for all of you and I think some sad news for all our fellow citizens and people who love peace all over the world. And that is that Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.”
A gasp ran through the crowd, followed by shouts of “No!” and “Black Power!” Indianapolis, like so many cities across the nation, seemed ready to come apart at the seams. But here Kennedy, speaking only from a few scribbled notes, and beginning in a trembling, halting voice, slowly brought the people back around and somehow held them together.
“Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings,” Kennedy said. “He died in the cause of that effort . . . ”
Listening to the speech decades later, you can hear the crowd soon become still, ready to hear the candidate out. Speaking from the heart, Kennedy told the crowd how he “had a member of my family killed”—a reference to his brother, of course, who had been assassinated less than five years before.
“But we have to make an effort in the United States,” the younger Kennedy continued, “we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times.
“My favorite poem, my favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote: ‘Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget/ falls drop by drop upon the heart,/ until, in our own despair,/ against our will,/ comes wisdom / through the awful grace of God.”
A few minutes later, Kennedy closed by telling the crowd, “Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.”
Indianapolis was one of the few cities that didn’t burn that evening in April 1968, or in the days ahead.
Memphis didn’t burn that night, either. Hours after King’s death, Kyles, Abernathy, Young and many of their group were back at the Lorraine Hotel, counseling their followers not to fall into violence. “As you can imagine, it was a very, very difficult evening,” Kyles said. “I have never felt so sad, so angry, so lonely in all of my life. But we found a way to carry on. We knew it was important to carry on Dr. King’s message to the world. We decided that night that you can kill the dreamer, but you cannot kill the dream.”
Back at Kyle’s home, the home-cooked food that had been laid out for that evening’s dinner still sat on the table. Kyles’s youngest son, Dwain, couldn’t bring himself to eat any of it. He made himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead.
The next morning, in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Cardinals’ spring training camp was like most places in America: the King assassination the major topic of conversation. Gibson was devastated by the news and got into a heated exchange with his catcher, Tim McCarver. After telling McCarver that he couldn’t possibly comprehend what it was like to be a black person on this morning, and that it was impossible for whites, no matter how well intentioned, to totally overcome prejudice, Gibson turned his back on his batterymate.
To McCarver’s credit, he didn’t let the
In Indianapolis, presidential candidate Robert Kennedy was about to speak from the back of a flatbed truck to a predominately black crowd at a campaign stop when he received the news that King had been assassinated. In what would later be looked back on as the second of two extraordinary speeches in as many days, and a stunning example of the healing power that words can offer, Kennedy told his audience about King’s death. For most of them it was the first they had heard of the tragic news.
After asking many in the crowd to lower their signs, Kennedy said, “I have some very sad news for all of you and I think some sad news for all our fellow citizens and people who love peace all over the world. And that is that Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.”
A gasp ran through the crowd, followed by shouts of “No!” and “Black Power!” Indianapolis, like so many cities across the nation, seemed ready to come apart at the seams. But here Kennedy, speaking only from a few scribbled notes, and beginning in a trembling, halting voice, slowly brought the people back around and somehow held them together.
“Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings,” Kennedy said. “He died in the cause of that effort . . . ”
Listening to the speech decades later, you can hear the crowd soon become still, ready to hear the candidate out. Speaking from the heart, Kennedy told the crowd how he “had a member of my family killed”—a reference to his brother, of course, who had been assassinated less than five years before.
“But we have to make an effort in the United States,” the younger Kennedy continued, “we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times.
“My favorite poem, my favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote: ‘Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget/ falls drop by drop upon the heart,/ until, in our own despair,/ against our will,/ comes wisdom / through the awful grace of God.”
A few minutes later, Kennedy closed by telling the crowd, “Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.”
Indianapolis was one of the few cities that didn’t burn that evening in April 1968, or in the days ahead.
Memphis didn’t burn that night, either. Hours after King’s death, Kyles, Abernathy, Young and many of their group were back at the Lorraine Hotel, counseling their followers not to fall into violence. “As you can imagine, it was a very, very difficult evening,” Kyles said. “I have never felt so sad, so angry, so lonely in all of my life. But we found a way to carry on. We knew it was important to carry on Dr. King’s message to the world. We decided that night that you can kill the dreamer, but you cannot kill the dream.”
Back at Kyle’s home, the home-cooked food that had been laid out for that evening’s dinner still sat on the table. Kyles’s youngest son, Dwain, couldn’t bring himself to eat any of it. He made himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead.
The next morning, in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Cardinals’ spring training camp was like most places in America: the King assassination the major topic of conversation. Gibson was devastated by the news and got into a heated exchange with his catcher, Tim McCarver. After telling McCarver that he couldn’t possibly comprehend what it was like to be a black person on this morning, and that it was impossible for whites, no matter how well intentioned, to totally overcome prejudice, Gibson turned his back on his batterymate.
To McCarver’s credit, he didn’t let the
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