Robert Kennedy Quotes
We must recognize the full human equality of all our people - before God, before the law, and in the councils of government. We must do this not because it is economically advantageous - although it is; not because the laws of God and man command it - although they do command it; not because people in other lands wish it so. We must do it for the single and fundamental reason that it is the right thing to do.
Kennedy, Robert F. The Pursuit of Justice. Harper & Row, 1964.
One of the earliest codes of equality before the law for both rich and poor.
Ernestine Louise Polowsky. Rose was an atheist as well, a rarity for abolitionists of the time.
He was responding to Mississippi Congressman William Colmer-- {637395}. Southern racists frequently accused other members of Congress of being intimidated by civil rights leaders rather than voting for civil rights legislation out of conviction. Many of them, like Colmer, were so insular that revanchist that they did not realize that other whites could really believe that segregation was not a necessary and good thing.
He would not allow himself to be buried in a cemetery that would not allow Blacks. He was laid to rest in Shreiner's Cemetery, one of the very few racially integrated cemeteries at the time.
He was trying to calm many Americans who were upset that a young Black man who was accused of a minor misdemeanor of selling loose cigarettes (not whole packs) was being arrested by 5 white New York City police officers who thought that he was not cooperating forced him to the ground with one using a “choke hold” that was against Police Department regulations. The video, taken by a citizen, showed the arrested man crying to the police several times that he could not breathe when the pressure was placed by the officer with the choke hold. He man was choked to death. The coroner declared the death a homicide. However, the Staten Island district attorney presented the case to the Grand Jury in such a way that the jury found no reason to indict any of the police officers for any crime. Staten Island is a borough of New York far smaller and more suburban than the rest of New York System and more than half of all the white New York City police officers lived in the only conservative borough of New York where they were a major political force in the election of the borough district attorney. The President told the public that the Justice Department would investigate the case to determine if the victim’s civil rights had been violated.
Robert Francis Kennedy, also referred to by his initials RFK or by the nickname Bobby, was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, and as a U.S. Senator from New York from January 1965 until his assassination in June 1968. He was, like his brothers John and Edward, a prominent member of the Democratic Party and has come to be viewed by some historians as an icon of modern American liberalism.
