Chap­ter 14: RFK takes us through John Lewis’s involve­ment in the 1968 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign of Robert F. Kennedy, a jour­ney that pro­found­ly shaped both his per­son­al and polit­i­cal life. The chap­ter begins with Lewis, along with his friends Con­nie Cur­ry and Joan Brown­ing, cel­e­brat­ing Kennedy’s deci­sion to chal­lenge Pres­i­dent Lyn­don John­son for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion. This deci­sion came after wide­spread frus­tra­tion over Johnson’s han­dling of the Viet­nam War, which had been exac­er­bat­ed by Eugene McCarthy’s strong per­for­mance in the New Hamp­shire pri­ma­ry. While Lewis had been ini­tial­ly skep­ti­cal of Kennedy dur­ing the Free­dom Rides, he had grown to believe in his com­mit­ment to civ­il rights and social jus­tice, see­ing in him a fig­ure who could bring about mean­ing­ful change.

In response to Kennedy’s announce­ment, Lewis wast­ed no time in offer­ing his sup­port. He quick­ly sent a telegram to Kennedy’s cam­paign, vol­un­teer­ing to help in any way he could. Know­ing that Black vot­ers would be crit­i­cal to Kennedy’s suc­cess, Lewis moved to Indi­anapo­lis, where he worked tire­less­ly to ener­gize vot­ers and pro­mote the Indi­ana pri­ma­ry. One of his most sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions was orga­niz­ing a ral­ly in a pre­dom­i­nant­ly Black neigh­bor­hood, aim­ing to gal­va­nize the local elec­torate. How­ev­er, tragedy struck when Mar­tin Luther King Jr. was assas­si­nat­ed on the same day as the ral­ly. Despite the immense grief, Kennedy chose to address the crowd, deliv­er­ing an emo­tion­al speech that both mourned King’s death and called for uni­ty, urg­ing the audi­ence not to let anger and vio­lence take hold.

As riots erupt­ed across the Unit­ed States, Indi­anapo­lis remained large­ly peace­ful, a tes­ta­ment to the calm­ing influ­ence of Kennedy’s speech. In the after­math of King’s assas­si­na­tion, Lewis was pro­found­ly affect­ed, and he wit­nessed the toll that the event had on Kennedy as he worked with the com­mu­ni­ty to arrange King’s funer­al. Ten­sions ran high when Lewis and oth­er cam­paign staffers met with Black com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, but despite the fraught atmos­phere, they man­aged to secure sup­port for Kennedy in exchange for cam­paign funds. Over the fol­low­ing months, Lewis remained deeply involved in Kennedy’s cam­paign, work­ing to secure vic­to­ries in the pri­maries. How­ev­er, a shift began to emerge among younger Black lead­ers, who became increas­ing­ly dis­il­lu­sioned with the polit­i­cal sys­tem and began ques­tion­ing the direc­tion of the move­ment. They were not as eas­i­ly per­suad­ed by Kennedy’s mes­sage, lead­ing to chal­lenges in main­tain­ing a unit­ed front with­in the cam­paign.

Despite these set­backs, includ­ing loss­es in some key pri­maries such as Ore­gon, Lewis con­tin­ued to fight for Kennedy’s vision. He saw Kennedy’s can­di­da­cy as a nat­ur­al exten­sion of the civ­il rights move­ment, one that would bring real change to the coun­try. As the Cal­i­for­nia pri­ma­ry approached, enthu­si­asm for Kennedy’s cam­paign reached its peak, and sup­port­ers believed that vic­to­ry was with­in reach. But on the night of his vic­to­ry cel­e­bra­tion, tragedy struck once more when Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, throw­ing the cam­paign and the nation into fur­ther tur­moil. Lewis, who had become deeply invest­ed in Kennedy’s cam­paign, was dev­as­tat­ed by the assas­si­na­tion, griev­ing not only the loss of a leader but also the loss of a man who embod­ied hope for the future of racial equal­i­ty and social jus­tice. Despite the pro­found sor­row, Lewis remained engaged in the polit­i­cal process, rec­og­niz­ing that the fight for civ­il rights and equal­i­ty was far from over. His resilience in the face of such loss illus­trat­ed his unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to the ideals of jus­tice, equal­i­ty, and the pow­er of com­mu­ni­ty involve­ment. This chap­ter serves as a pow­er­ful reminder of the per­son­al sac­ri­fices made by those who fought for civ­il rights, as well as the endur­ing impact of Kennedy’s cam­paign on Lewis and the broad­er move­ment for social change.