The highlight of my week came Wednesday night when I attended the celebration of Bobby Kennedy's life in the Mansfield Room. That room, just off the Senate floor, was packed with Kennedy family members, former staffers and long-time admirers.
The fact I was the only Republican within a few hundred yards of the room became painfully evident when Congressman Ed Markey's introduction of me was answered with a quiet smattering of applause from three or four polite souls. Since I have seemingly spent most of my political life swimming against the tide, the cool welcome was nothing new.
After bowing my head and thanking them for their warm welcome, I began telling the crowd of progressive Democrats why I was crashing their party.
My fascination with Bobby Kennedy began in 1981 when I was a senior in high school. At the time I had Reagan bumper stickers plastered all over my car and just knew that Ronald Reagan would change the political world forever. But during a trip to a Pensacola bookstore, I stumbled across a biography that would place none other than Bobby Kennedy at the top of political heroes list.
As with Reagan and Truman, my attraction to Kennedy had more to do with courage than ideology. Like those two presidents, Bobby Kennedy seemed to be moved more by personal convictions than political polls.
That fact was proven In June, 1966 when RFK dared to go to South Africa — a country that was an ally of the United States because of its strong anti-communist stance.
For Kennedy, simply opposing the Soviet Union was not reason enough to overlook apartheid. So RFK ignored the advice of presidents, ambassadors and political wise men of his day and instead traveled to South Africa to deliver a speech that would begin a movement that would end apartheid.
Kennedy told South African students not to be discouraged by the wide array of challenges facing our troubled world. For when one person stood up for an ideal, helped out those in need or struck out against injustice, he sent forth a tiny ripple on the water that when combined with the acts of others, created a title wave that could knock down the mightiest walls of oppression.
On that summer day so long ago, Bobby Kennedy taught an oppressed people how to do nothing less than bend history.
For the next two years of his life, Kennedy's words and deeds kept reminding us all that one person could make a difference.
I decided to get into public service and make a difference after reading about the Senator's response to Martin Luther King's assassination on April 4, 1968.
Kennedy was in the middle of his final, ill-fated campaign and prepared to go into the most dangerous part of Indianapolis. Just before heading to the event, his press secretary got the word that King had been shot dead by a white man.
Immediately, staff members scrambled to cancel the event. Ghettos were sure to explode in violence across Indianapolis and America. But when Kennedy chose to ignore the warnings, the Indianapolis Chief of Police weighed in.
His men could not provide protection. It was simply too dangerous.
So Bobby Kennedy went in alone that night to deliver the greatest speech of his life.
He told that broken crowd of Americans how it was not the time to embrace violence but rather to live the very values for which Martin Luther King had died.
Later that evening, riots did break out in over a thousand cities and towns across America. Parts of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago burned long into the early morning. Countless other cities and towns were engulfed in violence and rage. But that night, Indianapolis went to sleep in peace.
It was the story of how one man made a difference.
It is a reminder of how one person can still bend history.
It is a challenge sent through the ages of how we can still save a dying world.
