From WFYI:
Memorial expanded at the site where Robert Kennedy mourned Martin Luther King Jr.
A day before the 58th anniversary of Robert Kennedy's speech mourning the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Indianapolis unveiled a $6.8 million reimagining of the park that marks the site where Kennedy spoke.
The project includes a new plaza, walkways, landscaping, and expansion of the existing Landmark for Peace memorial at the park on the city's near-north side. Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett and Indy Parks leaders joined community partners for a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
"Projects like this one remind us that our beloved Indy parks are not just places to connect with nature… they also are places to connect with our own history," Hogsett said.
On April 4, 1968, Kennedy made an impromptu speech to a crowd announcing the assassination of King. Kennedy was campaigning for president at the time.
Indy Parks Director Brittany Crone credited Kennedy’s speech with calming tensions in Indianapolis following King’s assassination. Riots broke out in other cities.
"What has always drawn me to this park is that it not only connects two leaders who defined a generation, but also the impact Robert Kennedy's words had on our city that night,” Crone said. Later adding: “Kennedy's words connected with people and helped to maintain a feeling of hope."
Kennedy was assassinated two months later, in June 1968, further connecting the two men's legacies.
The new plaza includes information about King, Kennedy, the civil rights movement and other materials drawn from the nearby Kennedy King Park Center's indoor display.
The Landmark for Peace memorial was dedicated in 1995 by local, state and national leaders, including former President Bill Clinton and members of the Kennedy and King families.
The park's growth continued with the "Making the Dream a Reality" initiative started in 2005 by State Rep. Bill Crawford, fostering community engagement and youth programs.
The project is part of a public-private investment of over $140 million to improve 42 parks across the city.
Contact WFYI digital producer and reporter Zach Bundy at zbundy@wfyi.org.
FULL TEXT OF ROBERT F. KENNEDY'S SPEECH: INDIANAPOLIS, APRIL 4, 1968
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening, because I have some very sad news for all of you Could you lower those signs, please? I have some very sad news for all of you, and, I think, sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world; and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.
Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.
For those of you who are black considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.
We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion, and love.
For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.
But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote:
Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.
So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King yeah, it's true but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.
We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past, but we and we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.
But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.
And let's dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.
Thank you very much.
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