Committing to nonviolence

The Vietnam War solidified my commitment to nonviolence, not only because of the deaths in Southeast Asia but because of the murders and attempted murders of public figures here at home — civil rights activist Medgar Evers and President John F. Kennedy in 1963; Freedom Riders James Chaney, Michael Goodman, and Andrew Schwerner, and Pan-Africanist Muslim minister Malcolm X in 1964; civil rights leader and Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968; and attorney general, senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy that same year. 

The next decade brought no relief. In 1970, four students were killed and nine were wounded when National Guard troops fired on students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University in Ohio. Shortly after that, two students were killed and 12 were wounded by state and city police at Jackson State University in Mississippi. In 1972, Alabama governor and presidential candidate George Wallace was shot and left paralyzed from the waist down.

The 1960s and ’70s tested our democracy, that long-winded and rather lumbering system in which each person is equal before the law. Now, we are being tested again. In July 2024, there was an attempted murder of then presidential candidate and now President Donald Trump. In December of the same year, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian R. Thompson was murdered. In June of this year, Minnesota State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman were murdered. Earlier the same morning, Minnesota State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette Hoffman, were shot and survived. Most recently, the political activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed.

While our national consensus has for much of American history been tenuous and fiercely contested, we have largely been able to maintain nonviolent democratic institutions that have allowed for the development — albeit in a sometimes grindingly slow way — of a more diverse society able to embrace a wide range of experiences and viewpoints.

I worry that we now face the possible dissolution of our democratic system and the consequent destruction of the kind of society we’ve been building for over 200 years. Still, there are voices from the past that give me hope. Surprisingly, one is that of Gov. Wallace, who for much of his life was a fierce opponent of racial equality. In his 1963 inaugural speech, Wallace said, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” To support those words, he stood in a doorway to block the entrance of the first two black students at the University of Alabama. Wallace’s shooting reflected the deep political and cultural polarization of the country. Surprisingly, when Wallace was in the hospital, one of his visitors was Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress. Wallace and Chisholm were both 1972 presidential candidates, and the two could not have been more different. But Chisholm, who sought to bring the country together in the face of poverty, racism and the Vietnam War, visited Wallace. I don’t know what they talked about or what drove Wallace’s thinking, but by the late ’70s, he disavowed his former racist actions, saying, “I was wrong. Those days are over, and they ought to be over.”

That brings me to Robert F. Kennedy. Two months before his assassination, Kennedy was in Indianapolis as part of his 1968 presidential campaign. He was about to speak before a largely Black audience when he learned of Martin Luther King Jr.’s murder. Abandoning his prepared remarks, he spoke spontaneously, informing the audience of King’s death and saying, “Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.” Kennedy then added, “What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be Black.” Following King’s murder, there were riots in cities across the country, but not in Indianapolis where Kennedy spoke.

I hope we keep Wallace’s change of heart, Chisholm’s visit and Kennedy’s words in mind during this time of great social polarization. We can find our way forward by acting from wisdom and compassion, by offering one another kindness and understanding, by stepping out of ourselves and into the other.