My great Aunt once said to me, 'it means something to be a Kennedy." Every 'Negro,' she said, 'owes the Kennedy's a debt." I was a kid-- a first grader-- so I didn't understand. I was at Martin Van Lucas elementary school when they hurried the student's home saying, 'the President had been shot.' I walked home to a house filled with women-- all crying. To this day, I remember the tears. A few years later, as I awakened to dress for school, my great Aunt was crying again. She explained that down Figueora Street, a few miles North from our little house, another Kennedy has been murdered. Although she is long since dead-- now some 30 years--she would cry today because another Kennedy -- whom she loved with such matchless devotion-- no longer breathes in this world. Two by an assassin's bullet-- another by a murderous growth. Yes, in America, it does mean something to be a Kennedy. The marble towers, standing tall in the night sky, express the far-flung loneliness of those who dared to dream.
Comments