The Echoes of 1968 Still Haunt Us

Fifty-three years later, a reminder of what we could have been

“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until,
in our own despair,
comes wisdom through the awful grace
of God” — Aeschylus

He is 77 years old now. He has spent the past 53 years in prison for a murder that still haunts this country all these years later.

In the annals of history, the 1960s will be remembered as the most tumultuous. Not just in terms of social upheaval, but promises dashed, lives altered and issues that remain unsolved six decades later.

Civil rights, voting rights, Medicaid, war, sports, elections, assassinations, sex, music. The roots of today’s issues are all grounded in that decade.

The Ambassador Hotel is no longer there. It fell into disrepair and a bad neighborhood following June 5, 1968. It officially closed in 1989. It was permanently demolished in 2006.

Roosevelt “Rosie” Grier is 89 years old now. He played football for the New York Giants and Los Angeles Rams. He won an NFL Championship with the G-Men and was part of the Rams famed Fearsome Foursome (along with Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen and Lamar Lundy) that chased down quarterbacks from 1963–67.

In 1968, he was a part of Kennedy’s bodyguards (along with Rafer Johnson) who helped subdue the…