New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was on the presidential campaign trail as a Democratic candidate when he was fatally shot on this day in history, June 5, 1968, by an assassin at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California.
The New York legislator, better known as Bobby, was 42 at the time of his death.
Moments before he was shot, Kennedy delivered a victory speech in front of supporters in the hotel’s Embassy Room ballroom, according to the Los Angeles Almanac. He had just won the California primary race.Â
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The final words of Kennedy’s speech, given shortly after midnight on June 5 to a raucous crowd, were, “My thanks to all of you,” says the same source.
He added, “And now it’s on to Chicago, and let’s win there.”
As Kennedy worked his way through the crowd, shaking hands and greeting well-wishers and hotel staff on his way to another room for a press conference, he was shot several times by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant from Jordan, recounts the Los Angeles Almanac.Â
Robert Kennedy was pronounced dead a day later, on June 6, 1968, notes History.com.
“Just because we cannot see clearly the end of the road, that is no reason for not setting out on the essential journey.”
On April 23, 1969, Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to the death penalty after being convicted in Kennedy’s assassination.
In 1972, Sirhan’s sentence was commuted to life in prison after California abolished the death penalty, according to History.com.
The summer of 1968 was a tense time in America. The Vietnam War had created a restless populace at home as well as an outspoken anti-war movement.Â
“In the face of this unrest, President Lyndon B. Johnson decided not to seek a second term in the upcoming presidential election, and Robert Kennedy, John [Kennedy’s] younger brother and former U.S. attorney general, stepped into this breach and experienced a groundswell of support,”…
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