Boo. I don’t know you but I love you.
Suzie Perlstein
13325
- Robert Kennedy speaking location, 24th and Erskine — In May 1968, Bobby Kennedy stopped his campaign entourage to get out and speak to the large African American crowd gathered here.
- OMAHA, W 24TH STREET, right after the riots. There were still smoking buildings. Bobby spoke from a Flatbed Truck. I was soaked to the bone, standing on the platform with Earl Graves, Pierre Salinger and Larry O’Brian wearing a denim jacket over my prim little pink dress with little flowers, (to honor the Poor People’s March on Washington that had just taken place) in the rain. The denium was bleeding all over my dress from the rain. There were people standing on the roofs of buildings to see him, and we had no secret service protection back then. I looked up and said to Pierre that I was concerned about the people on the roof tops accross from us. He and Larry looked up and ran behind me, crouching down, laughing. Bobby was an hour late, having made extra stops like this one on the way to us, and I made him come up on the flatbed from the car, because all those people waited for him in the rain. Rafier Johnson and Rosie Greer were his bodyguards who had to carry him over the crowd in a human sandwich to get to the flatbed. Once he got up there he suddenly bent down. I grabbed him by the coat becasue I thought he was being pulled down, but instead he had seen a todler being crushed against the wheels of the truck, reached down to get her, turned around and gave her to me. Thank goodness the mom saw her baby and came up to get her. He told the crowd that rioting was not the way to make things better, that it was up to them to get involved, run for PTA prez, or local office of some kind, and make the changes they needed by getting involved in the community. Imagine. The smoke is still in the air from a Riot. The Black panthers office is around the corner, and they are up on the roof. We have no protection except for two ex foot ball players., and Bobby tells the crowd to stop using violence, to get involved in the schools, and run for other local offices, be community leaders, and make the changes they want for themselves. They were cheering, clapping, yelling his name, because he didn’t talk down to them, he told them to RISE UP to the challenge, with RESPECT, and they felt respected, understood, and cared about. Even the Black panthers cheered. That’s what Hillary does. That’s why #IMWITHHER