Today, as the severity of Senator Kennedy’s condition became more
apparent, I found myself, once again, back in seventh grade. I am in a
large hall, waiting in line. I am not sure what the line is for, and
for some reason the line can’t seem to form properly. We seem to be
waiting to go into an auditorium. Words are migrating from student to
student. It is November 22nd, 1963. The President has been shot. Next
to me stands a sweet looking young girl. Shoulder length dirty blond
hair. Delicate features. And she says, “I hope that he dies.” This was
the President who had taken us through the Cuban Missile Crisis, who
spoke of civil rights, and who had two young children. And she wanted
him dead. Her hatred was palpable and irrational. In retrospect, given
the times, I have always wondered whether her enmity was due to the
fact that he was a Catholic, and one who supported civil rights.

At 12 years old, I couldn’t fathom what I was hearing. I was struck
dumb. I simply couldn’t respond. I just stared at her and turned away.
Now, of course, I know that it was not her wish, but her parents’ or
some relative’s wish. But over the years this fact has only intensified
the shock. Everyone says that they remember where they were when they
heard that Kennedy was shot. I remember. But I also recall a young girl
who believed that she wanted to see him dead.

Before I became fully aware of the deep divisions in the country
over civil rights, Vietnam, or “values,” I knew that if this young
president could create such hostility, something was terribly wrong.
And so it was. I suppose that this was my introduction to the 1960’s.
Every now and again this scene reappears. Sometimes it arises for no
apparent reason. Sometimes it arises at appropriate moments, like
today, when we have learned that Senator Kennedy is gravely ill.

I have disagreed with the Kennedys. But I remember supporting Bobby.
And of course I remember him being shot. I also remember Teddy trying
so very hard, over four long decades, to do the right thing (as he saw it) for the
underprivileged and marginalized. I recently cheered as The Lion of the
Senate passed the torch to Obama. He was aging. Now that he had found
someone he trusted to carry on the Kennedy legacy, there was an arc
from 1963 to 2008, an arc that the last eight years of Bush, Rove,
Cheney, et al, seemed to have made impossible. But as I have watched
the returns from certain states, such as Kentucky this evening, I
return to that space in 1963, and I am afraid. I fear that as a nation
we will fail to do the right thing because we are still too afraid of
those who are “not like us.”