New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy was campaigning for president as a Democratic candidate when an assassin fatally shot him on this day in history, June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California.
The New York legislator, better known as Bobby, was 42 years old at the time of his death.
Moments before he was shot, Kennedy gave a victory speech in front of supporters in the hotel's Embassy Room ballroom, according to the Los Angeles Almanac. He had just won the California primary.
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The last words of Kennedy's speech, delivered shortly after midnight on June 5 to a noisy crowd, were: “My thanks to all of you,” says the same source.
And he added: “And now it's time to go to Chicago, and let's win there.”
In this May 9, 1968, file photo, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y., speaks to United Auto Workers delegates at a convention hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. (AP Photo)
As Kennedy made his way through the crowd, shaking hands and greeting supporters and hotel staff on his way to another room for a news conference, Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant from Jordan, shot him several times, the Almanac recounts. of the Angels. .
Robert Kennedy was declared dead a day later, on June 6, 1968, notes History.com.
“The fact that we cannot clearly see the end of the road is no reason not to undertake the essential journey.”
On April 23, 1969, Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death after being found guilty of the Kennedy assassination.
In 1972, Sirhan's sentence was commuted to life in prison after California abolished the death penalty, according to History.com.
Senator Robert F. Kennedy photographed on June 5, 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. (Getty Images)
The summer of 1968 was a tense time in the United States. The Vietnam War had created a restless population in the country, as well as an open anti-war movement.
“In the face of these unrest, President Lyndon B. Johnson decided not to seek a second term in the next presidential election, and Robert Kennedy, John [Kennedy’s] younger brother and former attorney general of the United States, stepped into this breach and experienced a groundswell of support,” says History.com.
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“What is at stake is not simply the leadership of our party and even of our country,” Kennedy said when announcing his candidacy for the presidency on March 16, 1968, according to the University of Virginia. “It is our right to moral leadership of this planet.”
Robert Kennedy was born on November 20, 1925 in Brookline, Massachusetts, the son of Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Kennedy. He interrupted his studies at Harvard University in Massachusetts to serve in the US Navy during World War II, but returned to college and graduated in 1948, says Brittanica.com.
Pictured in the center (left to right) are Ethel Kennedy and her husband, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, before he was shot and killed on June 5, 1968, during his campaign stop at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles California. (Getty Images)
Kennedy earned his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1951, the university notes.
On June 17, 1950, Robert Kennedy married Ethel Skakel of Greenwich, Connecticut.
The couple had eleven children: Kathleen, Joseph, Robert Jr., David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Max, Doug and Rory, according to the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization.
After earning his law degree, Kennedy began his political career in Massachusetts the following year, managing his brother John F. Kennedy's successful campaign for the United States Senate, the same source notes.
On March 16, 1968, Kennedy announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
After JFK won the election in 1961, Robert Kennedy was named attorney general of his cabinet, says History.com.
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Robert Kennedy continued to serve as attorney general until he resigned in September 1964.
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Following the assassination of President Kennedy in November 1963, Robert Kennedy briefly served as attorney general during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, says History.com.
A passionate communicator, Kennedy, in Poland in 1964 during the Cold War as attorney general, said: “The fact that we cannot clearly see the end of the road is no reason not to undertake the essential journey,” according to the U.S. website. University of Virginia.
Senator-elect Robert F. Kennedy places a flower near the eternal flame at the grave of his brother, the late President John F. Kennedy, during a visit on the one-year anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination. (Getty Images)
“In August 1964, Bobby resigned and then ran for a seat in the United States Senate representing the state of New York. This was the first time he had run for public office in his own right,” the Service says. of National Parks.
On March 16, 1968, Kennedy announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. It was, in the words of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., “an outrageous campaign, full of enthusiasm and fun… It was also a campaign moving in its scope and passion,” as the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum reports. .
“His 1968 campaign brought hope to an American people concerned about unrest and violence at home and the war in Vietnam,” the library also says.
“He won critical primaries in Indiana and Nebraska and spoke to enthusiastic crowds across the country.”
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While giving a presidential campaign speech at a rally in Indianapolis, Indiana, on April 4, 1968, Kennedy learned of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, California's Stanford University reports.
Kennedy informed the mostly black audience of King's death, warning them not to be “filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all whites,” because “Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and justice for his fellow human beings, and died because of that effort,” the university's website says.
Above, a special White House conference with civil rights leaders. Posing in the Rose Garden, from left: Martin Luther King Jr., leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Attorney General Robert Kennedy; Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP; and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. (Getty Images)
Kennedy's legacy of social activism and human rights continues today through the nonprofit organization Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the National Park Service says.
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In January 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California declined to release murderer Sirhan Sirhan from prison and reintegrate him into society with a grant of parole, more than half a century after the 1968 murder, according to the governor's op-ed in Los Angeles Times explaining His decision.
“Mr. Sirhan's assassination of Senator Kennedy ranks among the most notorious crimes in American history,” Newsom wrote in his decision.
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The political aspirations of the Kennedy family continue today. Last year, Kennedy's son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 70, an environmental lawyer, activist and vaccine critic, announced that he would launch a Democratic challenge against Joe Biden, as Fox News Digital previously reported.
Today, he is an independent presidential candidate in the 2024 race.
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