A White Politician, a Hispanic Activist, and a Distraught Palestinian Walk into the Ambassador Hotel

For of all sad words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are these: “It might have been!”

(John Greenleaf Whittier, 1856)

I couldn’t help but think of these well-known words when reflecting on the tragic events that happened in the first hour of June 5, 1968.

The White Politician

Robert F. (Bobby) Kennedy won the Democratic presidential primary in California on June 4, 1968. Late that night he walked into the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles to join many of his enthusiastic supporters for a vivacious victory celebration.

Just after midnight, Kennedy decided to call it a night. Hemmed in by the crowd, he followed the maître d'hôtel through the kitchen/pantry area of the hotel in order to exit by a back door.

RFK never made it out of the hotel on his own, for as he passed through the back kitchen area he was shot several times at close range. Rushed to the Good Samaritan Hospital (about ten minutes away), he died less than 26 hours later.

There is good reason to think that had he not been killed, RFK would have garnered the Democratic nomination for President in 1968.

In the November election, Richard Nixon just barely won the popular vote—and there is also good reason to think that he well may have lost the election if RFK had been his opponent.

“Of all sad words of tongue and pen . . . .”   

The Hispanic Activist

Dolores Huerta had enthusiastically welcomed Kennedy to California in March 1968. Although long overshadowed by Cesar Chavez, she and Chavez were the co-founders of the National Farm Workers Association in 1962 and was/is an indefatigable civil rights activist.

In an interview posted (here) just last month, Huerta (b. 1930) vividly recalled the day RFK joined thousands of farmworkers in Central California to celebrate the end of Chavez's fast for nonviolence.

Huerta happily walked into the Ambassador Hotel after the close of the California primary, and then stood on the podium with RFK as he gave his acceptance speech on that fateful night of June 4/5.

Huerta (on left) with RFK on 6/4/68

(If you haven’t seen the recent PBS documentary on Huerta, available for viewing here, I highly recommend it.)  

The Distraught Palestinian

Sirhan Sirhan was born (in 1944) in Jerusalem into an Arab Palestinian Christian family with Jordanian citizenship. When he was 12, his family emigrated to the U.S., moving to California after a brief time in New York.

On the night of June 4, 1968, Sirhan also walked into the Ambassador Hotel—but with a far different purpose than Kennedy’s or Huerta’s.

According to a reviewer of Mel Ayton’s book The Forgotten Terrorist (2007), “Sirhan Sirhan was not just a crazed 24-year-old Jordanian immigrant. He was in fact a radicalized Palestinian refugee with a clear political motive to attack the U.S. and its political institutions.”  

As a New York Senator, Kennedy had a large Jewish constituency. With the June 1967 Six-Day War fresh in the headlines, to Sirhan and many other Palestinians, Kennedy's unfortunate pledge to arm Israel seemed to be a declaration of war against the Palestinian people.

Sirhan was soon arrested and the following year was sentenced to death for assassinating Kennedy. With the change in California laws of capital punishment, in 1972 his sentence was changed to life imprisonment.

Surprisingly, a May 26 article in the Washington Post (here) is titled “Who killed Bobby Kennedy? His son RFK Jr. doesn’t believe it was Sirhan Sirhan.”

Regardless, the assassination of RFK is said to be the first major incident of political violence in the U.S. stemming from the Arab–Israeli conflict.

Again, sad words about what could have been so very different.

Honoring Cesar Chavez

Tomorrow, March 31, is a state holiday in California, Colorado, and Texas. It is Cesar Chavez Day. And four years ago today, President Obama proclaimed March 31 of each year as Cesar Chavez Day nationwide, although it is not a holiday in the other 47 states.

César Chávez, the Mexican-American migrant farm worker, civil rights activist, and outstanding labor leader, was born on March 31, 1927. He died in 1993.

In his Presidential Proclamation of March 30, 2011, President Obama said,

Cesar Chavez’s legacy provides lessons from which all Americans can learn. One person can change the course of a nation and improve the lives of countless individuals. Cesar once said, “Non-violence is not inaction. . . . Non-violence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win.”

The President went on to say,

From his inspiring accomplishments, we have learned that social justice takes action, selflessness, and commitment. As we face the challenges of our day, let us do so with the hope and determination of Cesar Chavez, echoing the words that were his rallying cry and that continue to inspire so many today, “Sí, se puede” – “Yes, we can.”

The achievements of Chavez were also recognized the year before and the year after his death. In 1992, Chavez was awarded the Pacem in Terris Award, named after a 1963 encyclical by Pope John XXIII calling upon all people of good will to secure peace among all nations.

Then on September 8, 1994, Chavez was presented posthumously with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton. The award was received by his widow, Helen, whom Chavez married when he was 21 and with whom he had eight children.

There was national recognition of Chavez and his work much before the 1990s, though. In 1969 he became the first Mexican-American to have his picture on the cover of Time magazine.

Last year, the biopic film “Cesar Chavez” was released, and June and I watched it with great interest soon after it came out on DVD. Although panned by some critics for being too hagiographical, we thought it was a good presentation of Chavez’s life and work.

Chávez was born in Arizona, but when he was still a boy his family moved to California and became migrant farm workers. In 1942 when he was 15, César dropped out of school and became a full-time migrant farm worker himself. Except for two unhappy years in the Navy, he worked in the fields until 1952 when he founded a Latino civil rights group.

In the 1950s, Donald McDonnell, a Catholic priest who died in 2012 at the age of 88, introduced Cesar to social justice and the principles of nonviolence, which became the basis for his activities as a labor leader.

In 1962, Chavez co-founded what became, and still is, the United Farm Workers. (The other co-founder was Dolores Huerta, who will soon be 85 and an outstanding woman who also deserves to be honored.)

At the time of McDonnell’s death, Arturo Rodriguez, Chavez’s son-in-law and successor as president of the United Farm Workers, said,

Cesar Chavez tried to live the gospels and the social teachings of his Catholic faith every day, but his career dedicated to service to others all began with the lessons he learned early in life from Father McDonnell.

Cesar Chavez was not without his faults. Still, he did so much to help the impoverished and exploited farm workers, first in California and then across the nation, he is well deserving of the honor given him on Cesar Chavez Day.

ADDENDUM (3/23/26)

It is with sadness that on March 18, 2026, Chavez was publicly charged with grooming and sexually abusing girls and women in the United Farm Workers (UFW) movement. Although it will not be possible to officially change the name of the March 31 holiday or related observances this year, it will be widely called United Farm Workers Day. Chavez, of course, will not be honored at all, and statues of him have been covered with blankets.

As mentioned near the beginning of the above article, Dolores Huerta was the co-founder of the UFW. She will turn 96 on April 10. Ms. Huerta was also sexually abused and even raped by Chavez, but she never spoke of that publicly until last week. She said the work of the UFW was more important than her personal mistreatment by Chavez.