RFK and history pass through Muncie 56 years ago as MLK dies in Memphis

MUNCIE, Ind. — More than half a century ago, 56 years to be exact, Muncie and Indianapolis became minor venues in America's history of tragedy during 1968.

On April 4 of that year, while U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y., was campaigning for president in Muncie, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot as he stood on the second floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. The civil rights leader's killing came as he was preparing for a march on Washington on behalf of the poor. King had been called to Memphis to support of a sanitation workers strike there.

Events careened swiftly that year.

Just four days earlier, on March 31, President Lyndon Baines Johnson announced a unilateral reduction in bombing of North Vietnam, made a call for peace talks and declared that he would no longer seek re-election, opening up the race for the Democratic nomination.

That came just 19 days after the New Hampshire primary results showed Johnson nearly losing to U.S. Sen. Eugene McCarthy, D− Minn. McCarthy, an opponent protesting LBJ's policies in Vietnam, pulled 42% of the primary vote while the incumbent president's escaped with 48%. That Johnson did so poorly was a shock.

Four days later, on March 16, Kennedy jumped into the race for the nomination.

McCarthy had already appeared at Ball State in October of 1967 and returned to campaign later in April, on the 24th. That was followed up by a visit by actor Paul Newman, who spoke to a crowd at Northwest Plaza shopping center before going on the the BSU campus on McCarthy's behalf. But the crowd for Kennedy on April 4 was a massive one.

E. Bruce Geelhoed, chairman of the Department of History at Ball State, has studied Kennedy's visit and said that McCarthy never drew a crowd like Kennedy did. That morning Kennedy campaigned in South Bend at Notre Dame University before flying to Muncie.

Historian Ray Boomhower, author of "Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary," said 12,000 people packed into the gymnasium on the afternoon of April 4, sitting on the floor, filling the seats, and rimming the gym on concourse above. Campaign aides had chose the gym, not knowing for sure how big the crowd might be, but knowing there were curtains that could be drawn and could hide any empty seats. But that was not a problem.

Geelhoed said he still shows students photos of Kennedy standing at the podium with crowds of people standing behind the candidate.

"They would never do that today," he said. "Nobody checked bags. There wasn't a policeman in site."

In Muncie at that time, he was safe, Geelhoed said.

Local attorney Marshall Hanley introduced the senator and Mrs. Kennedy. Hanley had helped organize the visit and drove the candidate.

Kennedy's speech was aimed to inspire.

"We must examine how we can help the millions of our fellow citizens who lead lives of hopelessness and poverty," Kennedy told the crowd. "As Sophocles said, '... (W)hat joy is there in day that follows day with death the only goal,?'"

The war in Vietnam and foreign policy was a major point of the speech. Kennedy was a top advisor and attorney general for his brother, President John F. Kennedy, from 1961 to 1963.

"As I have said before, I was involved in mistakes — the mistakes made during the administration of President Kennedy — undoubtedly mistakes were made regarding Vietnam, for which I was intimately involved. But what I hope is that we look to the past, ... and we see where we erred and where we've done right, and we benefit by the mistakes that we have made."

Geelhoed said that the speech RFK gave at Ball State was considered by many to be is his best of the campaign, according to the book, "The Last Campaign," by Thurston Clarke, about his 82-day run for the presidency.

Racial divisions were part of Kennedy's speech and part of the question-and-answer period afterward.

"... You're placing a great deal of faith in white America," a questioner from high up in the audience asked. "My question: Is this faith justified?"

"Yes ... obviously it's faith in white America. I'm also placing faith in Black America," RFK said in response to the question. "Let me just say ... I gather, although there's a shadow up the, that you are a different color than me. Let me just say, I think there are Black people and there are Black extremists, who do not like white people.

"And I think they are teaching violence and lawlessness and disorder and say that there is no future under our government or under our society. I think that they are to be condemned, and I think that they are performing a disservice for their own people.

"I think there are white people who say they are concerned about Black people and that the Black people are inferior, and therefore, they don't want to treat them ... equally. I think that is a small minority of the white people, and I think the vast majority of American people want to do the decent and the right thing here within our country."

The story goes, according to Geelhoed and Boomhower, that Kennedy climbed into the car taking him to back to the Delaware County Airport, then called Johnson Field. Kennedy was heading to a rally and the official opening of his campaign headquarters in downtown Indianapolis. But his driver, Hanley, told the senator that he heard on the radio that Martin Luther King had been shot in Memphis and was wounded.

Other people in the crowd at the airport reportedly shouted to the candidate that MLK had been shot.

The itinerary for the night changed in reaction to events, according to Boomhower. Perhaps in the air or upon landing in Indianapolis, Kennedy learned King had died. The event at the headquarters was canceled but the senator's staff had learned that a crowd had gathered outdoors at the Broadway Christian Center, at 17th Street and Broadway on the near northside, where an outdoor rally had been planned.

Long before cell phones kept the average American constantly plugged into the world and events, most of the people standing in the cold waiting to hear Bobby Kennedy did not know the awful news, the historian said. But elsewhere reports of rioting in city's across the nation were beginning.

It was probably about 8 p.m. or so on April 4, when Kennedy, standing on a truck bed, somberly spoke to the crowd and began what has come to be known as one of the finest extemporaneous speeches in American history, a deeply personal eulogy for Dr. King and concern for the country.

"I have bad news for you, 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 killed tonight," he began.

The mostly African American crowd exhaled a deflating groan.

"Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort," Kennedy said.

According to Boomhower, one of Kennedy's speechwriters at the campaign headquarters tried to write some comments and get them to the senator. Perhaps it was good fortune that he failed.

"In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is 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 there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible — you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization — black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another.

"Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love."

Boomhower said Kennedy had scribbled some notes but had not prepared a text. He spoke own his own pain.

"For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had 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 go beyond these rather difficult times.

"My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: '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.'"

The assembled at Broadway and 17th Street stood as quiet and listened as Kennedy continued.

"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.

"So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love — a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke."

Forty people would die in riots across the country following the assassination of Dr. King but violence did not come to Indianapolis, where voters had just elected a young mayor named Richard Lugar to a first term. Kennedy was later credited for preventing a potential riot in the city after many in the city feared what might happen if he spoke.

"Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people," Kennedy concluded.

RFK won the I1968 ndiana Primary Election.

He lost in Oregon primary to McCarthy.

Meanwhile, Vice President Hubert Humphrey got into the race, picking up Johnson's support and attracting slates of delegates but entering too late to compete in the primaries.

Kennedy won the California primary ahead of of the Democratic Convention in Chicago. He was shot after delivering his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He died on June 6, 1968, about eight weeks after King died.

The city of Indianapolis now operates the Kennedy-KIng Park at 1701 Broadway St.

David Penticuff is a reporter with The Star Press. He can be contacted at dpenticuff@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Between Muncie and Indy churchyard, RFK reflects on King, his brother