Intelligent Channel: Alex Cherian- ‘U.S. Senator & Future Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy (1967)’

Source:Intelligent Channel- U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy (Democrat, New York) visiting San Francisco, California in 1967.

“Senator Robert F. Kennedy, future presidential candidate, visiting San Francisco (1967) – from THE EDUCATION ARCHIVE. Kennedy was on a 10-state, 15-city tour to evaluate President Lyndon Johnson’s ambitious War on Poverty campaign. San Francisco State’s archivist Alex Cherian provides a 2013 introduction. Copyright belongs to Young Broadcasting of San Francisco, Inc. Special appreciation to Pat Patton and KRON-TV for helping to make this material publicly accessible.” 

From the Intelligent Channel

This video is the exact reason why I wish former U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone was still alive and had he lived I believe he not only would’ve been reelected to the Senate, but would’ve pushed what Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin L. King called the Poor People’s Campaign and tour from the late 1960s. But Senator Wellstone would’ve started this campaign the 21st Century once he returned to the U.S. Senate.

Not many people were talking about poverty in America back then at least not many public officials at the Federal level. And not many public people who were at, or near the height of Martin King were talking about.

Poverty and yes that it actually existed back then in a country that was then and now the richest country in the world and yet we have 1-5 or 1-4 then Americans living in poverty in Appalachia, the Delta in Mississippi, inner-city ghettos like in big cities like Detroit and Los Angeles, Baltimore and so-forth. That how can a country that’s as rich as ours have so many people who don’t have enough to live a good life.

Another thing that I respect about Senator Kennedy’s campaign was that it came right after the so-called War on Poverty was announced by President Lyndon Johnson. Because that so-called war really didn’t go far enough and I’m not talking about money.

What Senator Kennedy was looking at we're not only the what people in poverty go through and their living conditions, but also how to help these people move out of poverty and make a good life for themselves. Where the so-called War on Poverty was more about how to do we prevent these people from starving, going homeless, without clothes and healthcare and so-forth.

The War on Poverty, didn’t take the next step and building off of a system that prevents people from essentially dying. But how we do we empower them so they don’t have to live in poverty at all. Which I believe had Bobby Kennedy had lived, we would’ve seen those ideas come from him later on.

This is just one example of why RFK’s assassination was so tragic, because of the attention and the focus to these issues he would’ve brought. And why we need people with that type of power to focus people on these issues today since we are still dealing with the same issues that we were talking about as a country forty-five years ago. And be able to finally focus on how we actually solve these problems. Instead of just talking about them. 

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