1968 - 2008 ... Prediction = Fact

Watching "Meet the Press" today had me once again feeling that this human being, this man known as Robert F. Kennedy, was more than just a man. Here's the excerpt that knocked my socks off:

He gave a speech to the Voice of America all around the world 40 years ago. And despite what was going on in the country, particularly in Alabama, Bobby Kennedy said this: Things are "moving so fast in race relations, a Negro could be president in 40 years." This is in 1968, we're now in 2008. "There's no question about it," RFK said. "In the next 40 years a Negro can achieve the same position that my brother had." ... Kennedy said that prejudice exists and probably will continue to ... "But we have tried to make progress and we are making progress .... We are not going to accept the status quo." Extraordinarily prescient, which leads us to our "Meet the Press Minute" ....

(DK note: actually, it's more like 2.5 minutes, and please understand, for those of you under age 40, that Negro was a perfectly acceptable term for African-American back then; in fact it was the formal respectful word, a neutral word which black americans preferred):



I agonize over June 5-6 every year. In November last year, I blogged about my memories of that day. I wasn't going to put them up again because, although the memories are timeless, the inspiration for that blog was the presidential candidates as they appeared to me & commenters at the time. If you want to read it, here is the link. The Title is "Sounds of Silence".

I know in my heart that RFK's prediction for 2008 will become fact. In 1968, I would've thought he was being extraordinarily conservative, yet here we are today, wondering if the wounds of the past have finally healed enough to allow us to realize the future.