The winds of the '60s

Last Friday, June 6th, was the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Occurring just two months after the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., his death in the midst of a momentous presidential campaign signaled to many the end of a hopeful era. In less than four years, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, King, and the younger Kennedy had all been slain, and these violent killings laid the foundation for tumult at the summer's Democratic Convention in Chicago, the start of a massive anti-Vietnam War movement, and broader radical forces in the United States fed by the rhetoric of the Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement, the Weathermen, the Young Lords, and other revolutionary groups.

I was less than one year old when RFK was murdered; obviously, I don't remember any of these events. One of my first political-related memories, in fact, was about six years later, as I recall walking with my mother as she tried to explain to me what "Watergate" was. But as a "child of the sixties" -- and one "Born on the Fourth of July," no less, connecting me in some tangential way to the theme raised by the famous film that chronicled Vietnam veteran and anti-war activist Ron Kovic -- I have long been intrigued by this era of dramatic social movements.

What has particularly impressed me about the countercultural efforts of the 1960s was the dynamic tension between those who have sought to resist American imperialism with those who have sought to claim the highest ideals of American democracy and reshape them for an inclusive future.

This tension is something we must consider today, at a moment when another historic presidential campaign begins to pit not just two candidates or two parties with one another, but seemingly two visions of the world. As Frank Rich wrote in "One Historic Night, Two Americas" in yesterday's New York Times, we may be in a time when the language of hope versus fear and the ideals of broad-based global partnership versus American exceptionalism are being shaped as fundamental ideological differences within our nation.

I write this cautiously, as I am not endorsing one candidate much less naively prone to believe that either of them are a major step away from the neoliberal centeredness that has defined our country's foreign policies for decades. But it should cause us to reflect on whatever lessons might be learned from the 1960s.

Therefore, I am especially excited to begin reading Jim Douglass's new book, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. Douglass -- who along with his wife Shelley are long-time FOR members, Catholic Workers, and peace activists -- has spent the past decade researching the murders of these four U.S. iconic figures of the past century: the Kennedy brothers, MLK, and Malcolm X. His brand-new book is the first of what will be, if we are lucky, a quartet of profiles of each individual, casting the shifts each one made to global thinking about social justice and nonviolence. What better way to honor that historic era, I cannot imagine.