Echoes of 1968
“Get Clean with Gene - Ooops, I mean Dean”. The 24 Presidential election is looking oddly familiar
Echoes of 1968
“Get Clean with Gene - Ooops, I mean Dean.” The 24 Presidential election is looking oddly familiar
If you’re not a boomer, this will not be as apparent to you, but recently there have been a series of odd and interesting echos of the election in 1968 that is worth mentioning, if for no other reason than the odd coincidences that continue to crop up.
We began the year with an announcement from the son of Robert F Kennedy that he was going to challenge the incumbent President Joe Biden. . . Just as his father had done in 1968 against incumbent President Lyndon Johnson. In 1968 Kennedy was not the only Democrat to challenge Lyndon Johnson. Another candidate, Eugene McCarthy, “the peace candidate” had also declared his intention to seek the presidency. His base of voters was mostly young people, strongly opposed to the war in Vietnam.
Though it was not his campaign slogan, the meme that defined McCarthy’s campaign was “Get Clean with Gene”, directed at convincing his base, young Americans, to clean up their act, cut their hair, and present a serious face to the older generations, wavering, but still supporting the War in Vietnam.
Last week, another Democratic candidate entered the 2024 Presidential sweepstakes. His name is Dean Phillips and his campaign motto, at least for now, is “Get Clean with Dean.” Whoever let that one slip by must not have been a Baby Boomer.
Are you beginning to get the picture?
It was Mark Twain who said: “history doesn’t repeat itself but it sure does rhyme a lot”. The similarities between the 1968 election and the 2024 election seem to get stranger and more compelling on a weekly basis, and they resonate today in far more serious ways.
Let me fill the picture in more . . .
In 1968 the war was raging both in Vietnam and in America. By the time the war would end, nearly 6 years later, more than 60,000 young Americans would sacrifice their lives. If you were Vietnamese, that number was north of one million.
The younger generation of Americans had turned against the war but it would be another year before a rock concert on the upstate New York farm of a man named Max Yasgur would serve as the cultural tipping point for the younger generation of Americans. What would come to be known as Woodstock became an enduring symbol of the anti-Vietnam peace movement in America.
Like so many historic periods where conflicting tides defined the flow of history, two years later the killing of protesting students at Kent State and Jackson State Universities created the tipping point that would bring the “silent majority” of Americans to the streets at their children’s sides in opposition to the war. . . but I’m getting ahead of myself.
In 1968, Lyndon Johnson was the sitting President. Under Johnson, the war in Vietnam had gone from a national nuisance to an American nightmare and deeply divided the nation, already torn asunder by the efforts to address civil rights. (* see footnote)
A year before that, in March of 1967, Robert F. Kennedy had stood on the floor of the United States Senate and condemned the war, calling for disengagement. He was the first elected national leader to call for the end of the war.
At about the same time, another national leader, Martin Luther King Jr. came out in opposition to the war against the advice of most of his advisors with his “Breaking the Silence” speech.
Like Kennedy, his advisers had counseled him to wait. In Kennedy’s case it was because they feared it would hurt his future prospects to run for President himself. In the case of Dr. King, his advisors feared it would diminish his effectiveness in the civil rights struggle. To both their credits they followed their personal convictions and spoke out. King insisted that he could not be silent on the war and in good conscience continue to fight for civil rights. He said he could not call for peaceful resistance at home while so many were being drafted into armed resistance abroad. It was a difficult and courageous decision to stand for peace.
In a little more than a year both would be dead, felled by assassin’s bullets. King after telling his followers that he had been to the Mountain top. Kennedy on the eve of what looked to be the victories that would secure him the Democratic nomination for President.
Bobby Kennedy had gotten into the Presidential race somewhat reluctantly. Taking on an incumbent President was almost unheard of, yet he felt compelled to so do. Senator Eugene McCarthy was his friend and Senate colleague, but he was a one-issue candidate and Bobby Kennedy had undergone a “battlefield conversion” in the heat of the Civil Rights movement and he was fired by a desire to heal the wounds that had festered for much longer than just Vietnam.
Almost all of the Democratic establishment was against Bobby Kennedy. (Sounding familiar?) Powerful forces within the Democratic party accused him of every manner of evil and disloyalty. The Unions, a major source of political power in 1968, were all against him with the exception of Caesar Chavez and his United Farm Workers. Unlike the other Unions, the Farm Workers were loyal to Bobby because while most politicians in both parties were reluctant to spend political capital on migrant farm workers, Bobby had stood with them and marched with them when it mattered.
Kennedy and King’s opposition to the Vietnam War was about two years ahead of the majority of American voters. King’s commitment consistent with his core values. Both recognized that the war was tearing the country apart, and both recognized that the great challenges that lay ahead could only be tackled if we put the war behind us.
Kennedy’s commitment to civil rights and poverty alleviation demonstrated his ability to grow from his experience, yet even civil rights advocates remained somewhat skeptical of him.
There were some notable exceptions to that skepticism: Harry Belafonte and Marion Wright Edelman had accompanied Bobby into Appalachia to witness the hunger and poverty among both white and black children, Coretta Scott King who had appealed to Kennedy when she feared for MLKs life after he was arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Retired NFL giants Rosie Greer and Rafer Johnson would serve as bodyguards protecting him on the campaign trail.
Bobby was well aware that he had powerful, well-placed enemies aligned against him.
Yet there was something about him. . . Something genuine, something downright American, an optimism, a willingness to tell Americans hard truths when other politicians pandered to them; a fearlessness coupled with an abiding faith in people, and an empathy for people of all races and religions who faced challenges in their quest for a meaningful life.
Most important, he demonstrated a deep and abiding passion for the American idea and our place within it. He also demonstrated a willingness to learn from his own mistakes and failings.
In Indianapolis, against the advice of all his advisors and the mayor of the city, he sadly told a gathering of mostly African Americans about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and asked them to look into their hearts to find the love and humanity that would help us heal the wounded heart of our nation. One hundred cities burned that night, fueled by the anger, frustration and sadness of our African-American brothers and sisters, but not Indianapolis.
On the college campus of Ball State University, he faced students asking him to support their college draft deferments, but he would not, even though he opposed the war. When he finished explaining his reasoning, he received a standing ovation from the crowd.
Bobby seemed to be calling us to be more gentle with ourselves and our fellow Americans.
As his funeral train made the journey from NY to Arlington National Cemetary, Americans, men and women, of every race, every religion, every income group, and every age lined the tracks to say farewell. Boy scouts and Marines saluted, black porters stood with their hats and hands over their hearts, white and black men, soiled by the grime of a repair shop or the dust of a factory joined nuns holding signs that said “Pray for Us Bobby”.
It was a nine-hour “moment” where our sadness spilled out all around, like coal ash from the smokestack of the train, yet Americans stood proudly in the knowledge that now it was up to us.
Can we learn from the lessons of 1968? Can we “make gentle” the hearts of our people? Can we heal our country?
Can we believe in ourselves again?
I pray that we can. . .
Notes & Links
MLK: Breaking the Silence
Robert Kennedy on Face the Nation 1967
RFK Speech in Indianapolis
Day of Affirmation Speech, South Africa
RFK Funeral Train
RFK Eulogy
Address to Students at Ball State University
About Wayne D. King: Author, podcaster, artist, activist, social entrepreneur and recovering politician. A three-term State Senator, 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor. His art (WayneDKing.com) is exhibited nationally in galleries and he has published five books of his images, most recently, "New Hampshire - a Love Story”. His novel "Sacred Trust" a vicarious, high-voltage adventure to stop a private powerline and the photographic books are available at most local bookstores or on Amazon. He lives on the “Narrows” in Bath, NH at the confluence of the Connecticut and Ammonoosuc Rivers and proudly flies the American, Iroquois and Abenaki Flags. His publishing website is: Anamaki.com.
Podcasts are produced at Anamaki Studios in Bath, NH.
This land lies in N’dakinna, the traditional ancestral homeland of the Abenaki, Sokoki, Koasek, Pemigewasset, Pennacook and Wabanaki Peoples past and present. We acknowledge and honor with gratitude those who have stewarded N’dakinna throughout the generations.