RFK Assassinated

Setting the scene

Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated on June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, moments after winning the California Democratic presidential primary. Kennedy, aged 42, had just given his victory speech at midnight and was walking through the hotel kitchen when Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian Jordanian, shot him with a .22 revolver. Kennedy died 26 hours later on June 6 at Good Samaritan Hospital.

What happened

Sirhan was motivated by Kennedy's support for Israel—he had spoken of sending 50 bombers to Israel. Sirhan was convicted and sentenced to death, commuted to life imprisonment when California abolished the death penalty. Kennedy's campaign had united working-class whites, Blacks, and Latinos around an anti-war, pro-civil rights platform. His death came just two months after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.

Why it still matters

RFK's assassination devastated a nation already reeling from King's death and the Vietnam War. It likely ensured Hubert Humphrey would win the Democratic nomination and lose to Richard Nixon, changing American history. Kennedy's death ended the Kennedy political dynasty's promise and contributed to the sense that 1968 was a year of chaos. The assassination, like his brother's, spawned conspiracy theories. June 5, 1968, marked the loss of a leader who might have healed America's divisions over Vietnam and race.

Background

Democratic convention chaos followed.