Senator Kennedy

The passing of Senator Kennedy saddens me, as does the death of anyone; but his death touches me especially, because I think he overcame much tragedy in his life, while his work and accomplishments are intimately linked in my mind with great social events.

A few short years before his brother, John F., became president, the Supreme Court ruled that separate, but equal, social facilities, were anything but equal, and were illegal. This judgment was responsible for the unleashing of a popular groundswell to make the judgment a fact of life. Citizens lost their lives directly because of these efforts, and who is to say whether the assassinations of John F. and Robert F. Kennedy, as well as of Martin Luther King, were not linked to their work for social equality.

Senator Edward Kennedy's eforts were embedded in a notably successful, life-long Senate career devoted to the well-being of society, and especially of those within it who were unable to make their voices and needs known.

When President Kennedy, and everyone else working for justice has died during my lifetime, I have been saddened, not only for the loss of them personally, but because they had not accomplished their goals. It is only now, when I see President Obama in a position to carry the work of all of his predecessors forward, that I realise none of them have failed. The process is an ongoing one, and I thnk we are making remarkable progress, because of the standards these men have set before us.