It was this week, fifty years ago that I lost my innocence. In high school in 1960 I had campaigned for John Kennedy. Excited I was--and his inaugural address “ask not what your country can do for you…”--and then his national goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade--caused us to believe there was no end to the good things that could happen. I was hooked. Life was a wonder. And then my world came crashing down. The memory is seared in my mind. I remember that day fifty years ago as if it were today. My friends and I were chatting in the student senate office in college as a radio station aired Bob Dylan song “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Then suddenly, the program was interrupted to announce that the president had been shot. We turned on the TV and in moments Walter Cronkite announced the president was dead. Our world was shattered. Together we cried. At the moment is seemed as though all hope was gone. Yes, I came of age in the 60’s. It was a decade of conflict and turmoil. After the assassination of President Kennedy, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. Hope was rekindled. But even as that happened the civil rights controversy continued and the Viet Nam war escalated. Troubled years those were. And in 1986? It began with more assassinations--of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. In that year I was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and owe the controversy and conflict. War protests abounded. Dan Rather was hauled off the convention floor by Mayor Daley’s police and the police were shooting out the lower windows of the Hilton Hotel in which I was staying. I joined the war protestors in Grant Park just across the street from the hotel. Hope was near death once again. That year our own Hubert Humphrey was endorsed for president over our own Eugene McCarthy. Then Humphrey narrowly lost in the general election to Richard Nixon. And hope flickered, but remained--if ever so weakly. Oh my. The politics of the 60’s left their mark on me. But in those days I hung on to fragile remnants of hope. While I had the hope that African Americans would be treated as equals and that women would have the same opportunities as men I did not expect it to happen in my lifetime. And yet it has with H. Clinton as a serious candidate for president and with B. Obama as our president. I guess the lesson is we make progress over time if we keep at it. And tonight? We have problems in this country and in our world in abundance. And many of us have big challenges in our personal lives. But one thing I take from the politics of the 60’s is that no matter how difficult the strugglers, no matter how bad things may seem at the moment? Hope remains. That is a good feeling--at least for me. Tonight I hope we learn from but are not shackled by tragedies of the past nor can we be preoccupied with what might have been or should have been. Nor can we be traumatized by fears of what might lie ahead. Instead we need to be strengthened and energized by past experiences. And tonight the word from the farm is that hope remains…and we need to hang onto it. Hang on to it I do and I trust you do as well.
Posted on: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 02:35:06 +0000
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