By Robert Layton, Publisher of Blue Bluegrass – Forty-three years ago on June 6, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy gave his life for public service, when on that day he was assassinated in Los Angeles. On Friday, June 3, 2011, The Women’s Network presented an extraordinary and compelling speech by his daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Townsend has recently authored the book, “Failing America’s Faithful: How Today’s Churches are Mixing God and Politics and Losing Their Way.”

Townsend spoke on the understanding of the sacrifice presented by those who choose to serve the public, on the changes that have taken place since 1968, and on the challenge for Democrats in 2011. Here is some of her inspirational speech. It may not be reported in mainstream media, but it was so powerful that the highlights have been posted here to share with others in Kentucky and beyond. The use of “[]” in the text indicates an editor’s note.

Please don’t read these words and then criticize that which one finds dissatisfying in Kentucky, or in its individual political leaders. Instead, read these exceptional words, and then personally accept the charge to commit to work, and work, and work some more to help put Kentucky and America back on the track of compassion and of public service. What are you willing to sacrifice and give for compassion and for the public good? One obvious place to start is (regardless of gender) to join the Women’s Network by clicking here.

From her speech:

When I was growing up it never occurred to me that I could run for political office or become a lawyer. Because that’s what guys did. It was really not until the women’s movement not until I went to college that I learned that women could have speaking roles, could go to law school, could run for office. It occurred to me that I could do that. I say that because it’s important to know how much friendship makes a difference with what you do with your life. Sometimes you don’t see what you can accomplish until your friends tell you.

Tonight and this group is really a tribute to friendship. You’re giving strength not only to other women, but to Democrats to do the right thing by holding them accountable and lifting them up. That is so absolutely important. You may ask how I eventually became involved with politics. A large part came from growing up in my family, where at least if I didn’t learn I could run for public office, I learned the importance of public service. I learned the importance of trying to make a difference. I learned that when I was young. … We learned early on to get involved, to know what was going on.

But we also learned that it was difficult, and that’s okay. I went to Our Lady of Victory Elementary School. 45 kids in the class, one nun, and that’s all you really needed, because after all your choice was: heaven or hell. At one point the thugs my father (Robert Kennedy) had been investigating threatened to throw acid in our eyes because they didn’t like what my father was doing. So when the Kennedy kids were dismissed from Our Lady of Victory we had to go to the principal’s office and wait for my mother to come and pick us up. So we learned early on it’s important to make a difference but it can be dangerous. But my father believed you still had to make the effort. You still had to try and do what’s tough. I tell you that because sometimes people think “Why would you get involved in politics? They say bad things about you. It’s really difficult for them to know your private life. My point is, this country is important, and you’ve got to make that sacrifice.

I saw Mitch Daniels the other day said he wouldn’t run for president, because of his family. I thought if everybody cared more about their family than their community, we wouldn’t have a country. And I grew up in a family that said, we are sent to ask what we can do for our country.

What I also learned from my Catholic education is the kind of God that we prayed to was a big God. Not a shrunken God that only cares about three issues: abortion, same-sex marriage and stem-cell research. He cared about the poor, the sick, the homeless, the helpless and the stranger. And that’s what we were supposed to focus on. My father went to South Africa in 1966. When he was there he was questioned. He was talking about apartheid, which was basically that black Africans were told “We’re going to tell you where to live, we’re going to separate you from your family and we’re going to tell you where to work. We’re going to just control you.” And he was having a discussion with college students, who said “Well, if you read the Bible, there’s slavery in the Bible. If you read the Bible, there’s different levels, so why can’t we do it here? It is justified.” My father was thinking, how can he reach these people? How can he open their hearts to what was going on and what is just? So he said, “Just think about this: What happens if you die, and you go up to heaven, and you go to the pearly gates, and suppose when you get there, God is black? And that woke them up.

Because for too long and I think this is true also in our own country in the last forty years, we’ve created God in our own image rather than a God who cares about our neighbor and the stranger, and our enemy that we’re supposed to love. What the Democrats have traditionally said is we have a big God who cares about all of us. … We think about our history. Our history was that we have a big God, that we believed in union rights, and we also believed in compassion for others. Jerry (Abramson) was telling me today that he was with my father in 1968, on April 4, in Indianapolis. [Editor’s note: the day Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis] Obviously some of you know that day.

I was in Indianapolis just on Tuesday for a group called Catholic Democrats. We’re trying to grow ourselves. I also got to see a museum for that speech that my father gave. It talked about (and you mentioned this to me, Jerry) how my father learned that Reverend Martin Luther King had been killed. Despite being warned that the inner city is too dangerous and we don’t know if we can protect you. He told the group of African Americans what had happened, and he said “you may be bitter because Martin Luther King was killed by a white man, but my own brother was killed by a white man. So I ask you not to be bitter, because what we need in this country is love and compassion for those who suffer, whether they be white or they be black. Indianapolis was one of the few cities in the whole country that didn’t burn that night, because a politician was willing and had the courage to ask for love and compassion. It wasn’t easy, but he did it. Other politicians in 1968 could have done it.

You always have a choice: What are you going to say? How are you going to say it? How are you going to reach out to people? That’s what I think you’re trying to do, Governor [Steve Beshear] and you’re [Jerry Abramson] certainly trying to do, and each of you are here tonight to say that we can do a better job to reach out and understand one another.

I was lucky growing up in a family that taught me those things. So I did run for office in 1986. For Congress. I want to tell you a brief story about how women running for office has shifted since 1986. When I ran I ran for Congress and at that point I had three children. And I heard (and this probably happened to you, [State Representative] Ruth Ann [Palumbo], “How can you run for office if you have three kids? Why aren’t you at home taking care of them? And I wanted to say “When my father ran for president with 10 kids, and yet, nobody ever asked him that, but they asked women that, and they held it against them. And then we had the Anita Hill hearings in 1991. In 1992, there were four women who were lieutenant governors. In 1994, 21 women were elected lieutenant governors.

What it teaches you is that life can change quickly. Politics can change quickly. One year you elect Rand Paul, the next you [re-]elect Governor Beshear. You think about progress, it doesn’t go evenly. It goes down, and then it goes up. That’s really politics. It can change quickly, and you’ve got to be prepared. That’s what you’re all doing. You’re making sure that you are prepared.

I want to talk about what’s happening in this country, and what happened in 1968. In 1968, as you all remember, my father was running for president. David Frost asked Ronald Reagan and my father a question. I’m going to ask you that same question and give you thirty seconds of silence to think about how you’d answer that question, okay? The question is, “What is the purpose of life?” Think about how you would have answered it, okay?

Both Ronald Reagan and my father came up with good answers, and answers that rooted in the American tradition. Ronald Reagan said “The first thing is you have to reproduce yourself. Of course my mother [of ten] did a really good job on that one. And then he said what we really need in this country is individual freedom. We’re based on a belief in the Judeo-Christian belief of individual salvation and so what we need is individual freedom within the extent of the law. That was his answer. That makes a certain amount of sense. We talk about freedoms, we’re celebrating Franklin Roosevelt’s four freedoms.

But I think Ronald Reagan missed something. My father said the first thing you do, you need enough food, clothing and shelter. If you don’t have that, that’s not a worthwhile life. But after you do that, you have to help others. You may have no shoes, but there’s always somebody else who has no feet. Our responsibility is to help others.

What had happened in 1968 when my father lost the election is we moved away from a sense that we’re all in this together, we’re part of a larger community, and we have to help one another. [We moved to] A belief only in ourselves, individualism. That started to dominate our economic system, which wasn’t there before. Milton Friedman, Allen Greenspan, who only thought: “What can we do for me?” Ayn Rand. And that has been a destructive economic system. We hear the rhetoric: “We want to cut taxes to create wealth”. Well, wealth for whom? Wealth for the top two percent of Americans. Wealth for the rest of Americans has not gone up in thirty years. What we’ve done is focused on wealth and not on worth. It means our country is weaker of this bad ideology which we have to change, and that’s what Democrats need to do.

When I was growing up, the marginal tax rate for my family was 90 %. And my family thought that was fair and just, because my grandfather said I would give away most of my money so the rest of the country can be safe and secure and so that my family can grow up in a country that’s safe and just and secure. What we need is to revive that sense that we are a nation together, and it’s not just me versus you, but we are in this together. That is our religious tradition, and that is our political tradition. And that means that each of us [needs to] get involved in politics.

Remember in the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson said “All are created equal”? Well, as you know he didn’t do that. He said all men. So we can’t really quote everything Thomas Jefferson said. But he was on to something. And he said we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What he meant by the pursuit of happiness has been lost in the last 100 years. Because in the 18th century, the pursuit of happiness meant the ability to get involved in politics. There was a belief in what you call the public happiness. That the government had to do things to you, or for you, but it had to be with you. And that revolution, the revolution that we’re into, is about that public happiness that could get each of us involved. If you look at Mount Vernon and Monticello, they had a nice private life, Washington and Jefferson. They didn’t have a good public life, because they were subject to England and not citizens of America. If you remember the slogan, it was not “No Taxation”. It was “No Taxation Without Representation”. We have forgotten that important part of “Representation”. That’s what that revolution was about.

You’ve heard the wondering about whether America is exceptional? If you haven’t, you will. The Republicans are saying America is exceptional. We are, but because every citizen can vote. The ideal was that everybody should be able to participate. That ideal comes from the ancient Greeks. Where the Greek word for “idiot” was “a private person, someone not engaged in public life.”

The point today (and you saw it with the Supreme Court decision of Citizens United) is will the wealth control this country, or will the people control this country? And these fights are what the Democrats are about, because the people have to control it. That means, as you heard before, you’re going to agitate, and motivate, and educate, and you’re going to get out and vote. You’re going to get out and call your neighbors, because this is a fight for America. You know it, and I know it, and I wish you all the luck. Good luck, and God bless.

Robert Layton is the publisher of Blue Bluegrass.  To visit the site, click here.

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is an American attorney and author who was the Lieutenant Governor of Maryland from 1995 to 2003. She ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Maryland in 2002. In 2010 she became the chair of the non-profit American Bridge, an organization that will raise funds for Democratic candidates and causes.^[1] She is a member of the Kennedy family.