Fifty years after Robert Kennedy was shot and killed, I walked 50 miles in two days, June 5 and 6, to honor and remember him.

Before Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, his influence was fading, both because younger and sometimes more militant civil rights leaders were emerging, and because like Muhammad Ali, King had taken a stand against the Vietnam War.

The day he was shot, Robert Kennedy’s star was ascending. He won the all-important California primary and was headed to the convention in Chicago, where I believe he might well have won the nomination and faced Richard Nixon, an opponent the Kennedys had already beaten once before.

Yet in what resembles planned obsolescence, his importance in history has been forgotten or ignored.

I do not disparage Martin Luther King Jr. nor his importance to this country in any way. But I do disparage the rewriting of history to suit the current political correctness. I do not think we need a national holiday in Kennedy’s honor, but I do feel the 50th anniversary of his death deserves a front-page article and perhaps an editorial.

Also Kennedy deserves to be remembered for his life, not for the details of his assassination. For putting justice and excellence and fairness in the Justice Department. For his wise counsel during the Cuban missile crisis. For his taking a stand against the Vietnam War. For inspiring the best in a generation of young Americans.

I walked 50 miles not just to remember Robert Kennedy but also to remember how he brought out the best in our generation. He was a real person — for many, a real hero — and he should be remembered, especially now when the best government can seem to give us is a remake of Monty Hall’s “Let’s Make A Deal.”

George Hunt

Gardiner

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