It is time to make some changes. It’s time to make some big changes that won’t wait any longer.
I’ve been thinking a lot over the last week about the opening to a Robert F Kennedy speech.
Kennedy’s Day of Affirmation Address (known as the “Ripple of Hope” Speech) was given to National Union of South African Students members at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, on June 6, 1966 during the middle of Apartheid.
My father attended the University of Cape Town and listened to the speech in person in Jameson Hall on the university campus. He still talks about it 56 years later.
DAY OF AFFIRMATION ADDRESS
Mr. Chancellor, Mr. Vice Chancellor, Professor Robertson, Mr. Diamond, Mr. Daniel, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I come here this evening because of my deep interest and affection for a land settled by the Dutch in the mid-seventeenth century, then taken over by the British, and at last independent; a land in which the native inhabitants were at first subdued, but relations with whom remain a problem to this day; a land which defined itself on a hostile frontier; a land which has tamed rich natural resources through the energetic application of modern technology; a land which was once the importer of slaves, and now must struggle to wipe out the last traces of that former bondage. I refer, of course, to the United States of America.
Robert F. Kennedy , University of Cape Town, South Africa, June 6, 1966
Please read the or listen to the full speech here
markbartels.org 