"The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor,
young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all,
human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one – no
matter where he lives or what he does – can be certain who will suffer
from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on
in this country of ours.
Why? What has violence ever
accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been
stilled by an assassin's bullet.
No wrongs have ever been
righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a
hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of
madness, not the voice of reason.
Whenever any American's
life is taken by another American unnecessarily – whether it is done in
the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a
gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in
response to violence – whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which
another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his
children, the whole nation is degraded.
…Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too
often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the
shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence
abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of
inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.
Some
look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is
clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and
only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our
soul."
—Robert F. Kennedy
