40 years ago today, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis.



Bobby Kennedy, who was campaigning for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, was about to make a speech in front of a huge, mostly African-American audience in Indianapolis when word of what had happened reached him.

There was no CNN, no "24hr. news cycle" in those days. It was up to RFK to break the news to the crowd. He stood on top of a car with a microphone and made an extemporaneous speech that has resonated in the decades since King's -- and his -- untimely death. It's a speech that I have come back to more than a few times since I first heard it. I think it's worth hearing again. It reminds me that sometimes there really is power in spoken words and ideas. And that we've largely forgotten -- perhaps until this year? -- that our politicians can, maybe in rare cases, actually be leaders. . .

rfkonmlkdeath.mp3

It was a dark night. There was rioting and violence in a hundred cities in this country. But not in Indianapolis.

-jw