It is a revolutionary world we live in. Governments repress their people; and millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich; and wealth is lavished on armaments.

The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American society.

-Robert F. Kennedy-

This year’s presidential candidates didn’t need anything as momentous as an anniversary to remember Robert Kennedy, whose image as a politician of unusual conscience was cemented four months before his death, in the hills of Kentucky.

There, Kennedy traveled 200 miles, many over dirt roads, to reach some of the nation’s poorest families. It wasn’t merely Kennedy’s gesture of reaching out to the poor that established his reputation - others had made similar treks. It was the feelings he engendered, the air of pressing concern and sympathetic listening as he met people on sagging porches and in one-room schoolhouses.

Time has separated Robert Kennedy from the narratives he helped write - his brother’s presidency, the fight for civil rights, opposition to the Vietnam War. And what remains is, simply, a person who matured and grew larger on the national stage, and used his fame to cast a spotlight on the least powerful people.

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