Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (1968)
In the early morning hours of June 5, 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy — younger brother of President John F. Kennedy and a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination — was shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles moments after delivering his victory speech for the California primary. He died twenty-six hours later. The assassination shattered the hopes of millions who believed Kennedy could end the Vietnam War and bridge a deeply fractured America.
The Candidate of 1968
Robert Kennedy's campaign had transformed in the turbulent months since President Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek re-election. Kennedy had initially hesitated to challenge Johnson, but after Eugene McCarthy's strong showing in New Hampshire — which demonstrated the depth of anti-war sentiment — Kennedy entered the race in March 1968. His campaign drew enormous crowds, particularly from Black, Hispanic, and working-class communities who saw him as a candidate who understood their struggles. Kennedy was uniquely positioned to unite the coalition that had fractured over the Vietnam War: he had credibility with anti-war activists but also earned the trust of communities who distrusted the counterculture. On April 4, 1968 — the night Martin Luther King Jr. was killed — Kennedy was in Indianapolis scheduled to speak at a Black neighborhood rally. Defying police advice, he stepped onto the flatbed truck and, without prepared remarks, told the crowd that King had been killed. It was one of the most moving political speeches of the era, and Indianapolis was among the few major cities that did not riot that night.
Did You Know?
Shortly after Kennedy was shot, a busboy named Juan Romero cradled his head on the floor of the hotel kitchen and placed a rosary in his hand. A photograph of that moment, taken by wire service photographer Boris Yaro, became one of the most iconic images of the 1960s. Romero carried the weight of that night for the rest of his life, saying he felt he had failed to protect Kennedy.
The Shooting at the Ambassador
On the night of June 4–5, Kennedy won both the California and South Dakota primaries, putting him in a strong position to win the Democratic nomination. He spoke to jubilant supporters in the Embassy Ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel around midnight. Exiting through the hotel kitchen — a route suggested by security staff to avoid the crush of the main corridor — Kennedy paused to shake hands with kitchen workers. A twenty-four-year-old Palestinian-American named Sirhan Bishara Sirhan stepped forward and fired eight shots from a .22-caliber revolver. Kennedy was struck by three bullets; five bystanders were also wounded. Kennedy fell to the floor; the journalist Pete Hamill was nearby and later wrote that Kennedy looked smaller somehow, as if life itself had dimensions. Kennedy was rushed to Good Samaritan Hospital and underwent brain surgery. He died at 1:44 AM on June 6, 1968 — exactly twenty-five years to the day after D-Day.
Aftermath & Legacy
Sirhan was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment. He remains in prison; parole was recommended by the board in 2021 but denied by the governor. Kennedy's death came just two months after Martin Luther King's assassination, deepening a sense of national trauma and disintegration. Vice President Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic nomination at the chaotic Chicago convention in August but lost the general election to Richard Nixon. Kennedy's funeral train from New York to Washington was watched by hundreds of thousands of mourners lining the tracks. He is buried near his brother at Arlington National Cemetery. RFK's assassination, alongside those of JFK and King, defined the violence of 1968 as a turning point — a year when the American promise seemed to fracture irreparably, though the nation's long arc continued.