Speeches
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On the mindless menace of violence
Tags Share This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event to today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives. It is not…
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Day Of Affirmation Address
Tags Share Mr. Chancellor, Mr. Vice Chancellor, Professor Robertson, Mr. Diamond, Mr. Daniel, Ladies and Gentlemen: I come here this evening because of my deep interest and affection for a land settled by the Dutch in the mid-seventeenth century, then taken over by the British, and at last independent; a land in which the native…
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“Face the Nation” interview on Vietnam
Share I have found it, over the period of the last eighteen months particularly, very difficult to talk about some of the matters without getting involved in personalities. When I criticized the war in Vietnam in a major speech back in February 1966, after the initial stories, it was placed purely…on the basis of a…
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Address at the University of Stellenbosch
Tags Share If we—all of us—are to conquer anew the freedom for which our forebears gave so much, we must begin with a dialogue both full and free. In the world of 1966 no nation is an island unto itself. Global systems of transportation and communications and economics have transformed our sense of geography and…
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On the Death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tags Share I have bad news for you, 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. Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings and he died because of…
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Address on gun control
Tags Share This speech was delivered on May 27, 1968, by Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. To learn more about our work to carry out his vision of a more just and peaceful world, read our latest thought leadership here. Click here for our President, Kerry Kennedy’s, statement regarding her brother Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential…
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Address at San Francisco, CA
Tags Share It is clear by now that 1968 will go down as the year the new politics of the next decade or more begin. It is the year when the existing political wisdom had proven unable to cope with the turbulence of our times, inspire our young people, or provide answers to problems we…
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Press Release—Los Angeles, CA
Tags Share Perhaps the area of our greatest domestic failure is in the system of welfare—public assistance to those in need. There is a deep sense of dissatisfaction, among recipient and government alike, about what welfare has become over the last thirty years, and where it seems to be going. Welfare is many things to…
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Address at Indianapolis, Indiana
Tags Share Crime is an issue that is difficult and dangerous; easily susceptible to illusory and false programs; an issue which threatens to divert us from the road to a better nation into blind alleys of suspicion and mistrust. So let us examine not just the danger of crime but what we can do together…
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Address at the University of Indiana
Tags Share Long ago it was said, “The time for taking a lesson from history is ever at hand for those that are wise.” The war in Vietnam is not yet consigned to history. The fighting and bloodshed continue. The bombing of North Vietnam is restricted; but that too continues. And the negotiations, toward which…
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Presidential campaign speech at Scottsbluff, Nebraska
Tags Share John Adams once said that he considered the founding of America part of “a divine plan for the liberation of the slavish part of mankind all over the globe.” This faith did not spring from grandiose schemes of empires abroad. It grew instead from confidence that the example set by our nation—the example…
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Address at Michigan State University
Tags Share At the outset we must make it unmistakably clear: A violent few cannot be permitted to threaten the lives and well-being of the many, not lawless gangs disrupt the peace of our cities and the hopes of their fellows for progress. But history offers cold comfort to those who think grievance and despair…
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