the lobby came over and it's a great what if of the 1960s. as you say in your book when he's running for president, his advisers advising against giving the civil rights speeches and making places like indiana you've got to cultivate the white people and you know, he's sort of moderates a little bit but he's committed to the whites. but then again a lot of white working-class voters and some voters in the south, that's kind of limited but the great what if of body kennedy is perhaps he's the person who could have kept the liberal coalition back. through his ability to both speak out on civil rights and to garner at least work for some white working-class people. it just forces the question we have to day.

and you know, so for people who are optimistic about this, they think he had the potential. i'm just interested in your thinking, speculation about this what if question. are those people optimistic about body in that regard west and mark are they misplaced, is it optimistic in disgrace or we just don't have enough evidence west and mark what you're thinking about the great whatif of bobby kennedy . >> i think it's relatively, i think it's highly likely that he would have been nominated after california. if he had become president, that is passc. he had a visit, and that not totally new but i think he inspired people to service,

young people. and he also brought tremendous support and talent who were committed the way he was and in the 60s with the civil rights movement and young people, civic activism was really attracted a lot of people into public life who wanted to be part of the solution so i think he would have had that drawing power and he become president he would have built an administration that would have been you know, amazing and again, you don't want to minimizethe challenges . as you seen. but it would have given us, it would have someone said to me once the difference between what if kennedy nixon, it's like roosevelt. imagine if herbert hoover was elected. so kennedy had the kind of roosevelts layer in terms of creative, energetic,

confident and look when he came into the new deal. robert kennedy would have attracted people like that. they would have been ready to go. so i think keeping, there's a lot that had the change in american politics and public life in the 60s that began changing and i think you know, his capacity and his ability to bring people in and delegate. it was just something that could have made a huge difference at that moment compared to what you think about how things turned against thecountry , you talk about racism and he shows us what's coming. so the problems would have been huge and there's no telling what it would have certainly been different and yes. and it would have been i think what he had hoped was to move our public life and our democracy in a new direction.

that's who knows what that would have brought but it certainly would have been interesting to see. >> great. that's a great segue to a question. the last thing i want to talk about is for one of these people that you describe to would have been too young to have joined the administration but was certainly inspired by bobby kennedy is david axelrod, barack obama's campaign manager and became an adviser in the white house and axelrod, talk about how your members became an immigration figure and you saw barack obama, the thing that he recalled how bobby kennedy inspired people so you're certainly right about his ability to inspire young and creative people to enter the service. >> so questions. so i'm going to jump around in thequestions . i know we talked about, there's a question about

kennedy's efforts outside of the south and we talked a little bit around that. but i'm going to ask a question that you thought about before. and i'm just going to readthe question . how do you reconcile robert kennedy's work done on behalf of senator mccarthy's un-american act committee and roy cohn, with the work he did later to support the middle east? >> that's a great question and one i had when i started the book . the answer is that robert kennedy joined the committee in 53 i guess. both of his brothers worked for the senate. first of all he and roy cohn hated each other. they were hired around the same time. roy: went off in the library

at the american embassy. robert kennedy's job on the committee was to investigate trading and he was not peppering questions and he was asking who was trading and his work got praised by the washington post and this is a good thing to come out of this committee ismore information . but by the time, roy cohn just headed the staff and robert kennedy quit but before he quit they almost had a fistfight. that's right, he quit and he went and worked on other committees.

when he worked for mccarthy he was working on the republican side. he was hired by the democrats and came in right before the mccarthy hearings began. and he challenged cohen on a number of things and then robert kennedy was the one who works for the board that censured joe mccarthy . so again, he had a friendship with mccarthy which went back to the family for 10 years earlier so there was a personal relationship but his work on the committee was not digging up communism and that sort of thing and years later , he didn't feel there was a domestic threat, lots of people felt that back in the 50s but in the 60s tito marsh was a journalist. some people never forget robert kennedy for having anything to do with joe mccarthy but he's his friend said how this happened and they asked him and he said to marsh, i thought there was a threat and i was wrong.

i was wrong so it's it really is a headline grabber, people gravitate to that but my sense is he did not go on and while he was working for the committee he went to meet earl brower who was a former head of thecommunist party to find out more about the communist party . so i think that is more complicated that you and it's perceived looking back. >> here's an open ended question and i'm just goingto , the question is did he robert kennedy ever feel like he did enough? i guess i want to phrase this as we all worry aboutwhether we're doing enough . how did you get a sense of how he felt about the work that he was doing? do you feel like you should be doing more? was he disappointed in what heaccomplished ? >> he strikes me as the kind of person who didn't waste time thinking like that .

he was involved in viewing as his passion, energy and patience. he understood he said you solve one problem there are 12 more there more complex than the one before. just keep moving. keep learning. keep looking. one civil rights activist said about robert kennedy he went, hesaw, he listened . and that describes him and hand wringing and doing enough, he made mistakes and would you think about that? there's course correction or whatever but i think he understood human nature. he understood , i mean, he wasn't self absorbed. he was engaged in the life of the country, the work of the country at the time when the urgency was great. so i don't think, i think in running for president it's interesting to see how he thought of whatbrought him to that decision.you don't know .

it's really interesting to get inside of that but it's more, there's no clear path and robert kennedy understood that. there's no clear pathbut you have to keep moving ,learning , growing and he did that. >> here's another question. can you discuss rfk's role in the old miss prices and how that affected him also his visit to the mississippi delta, was another turning point in his life and understanding ? >> that's such a great question, both parts. i'll try to keep it, the old miss prices was huge. that was the biggest domestic crisis in the administration. and they had this rogue governor. they had a supreme court ruling that he admitted in mississippi.

they had what burke marshall called a potential insurgency , interesting word on their hands. but all hell did break loose. this governor if he did not do his job and so the build up to that was just this dance and when he said he would then he didn't, marshall got into this full-scale riot on the campus of old miss. meredith was protected. only marshall could be threatened and two people were shot and killed. and then they called the army and the army got delayed. robinson said it was the worst night of my life. and he and the president and their aides are sittingin the white house . there's calling from a payphone this is way before cell phones and it was just awful. and after it was over,

someone asked him what his brother had learned after i think this is interesting from the crisis and he said my brother learned never to trust, never to believe another book on reconstruction again. the old-school interpretation . that the federal government, it's just brought it to life. by the tip of the delta, let me add one other thing because kathleen kennedy told me this film about when robert kennedy went back in 1966, he was invited by the lawstudents to come back to old miss . what's going to happen when he goes back there? that's four years later they really wanted him . so he went and an kennedy went with him. they had some protection but really people in that state still blame him. and he went and i mean, there's the film is great but the background and how he got

there and the students, he gave a wonderfulspeech . there and got a standing ovation. 6000 students in that auditorium. so that was another one as you know what the delta, the trip in 1957 they would hold. field hearings investigating poverty programs and one of them was in the jackson and there's a great picture in brooklyn of sandy lou hammer testifying and robert kennedy listening. you heard about the poverty and just the historic project and just, he wanted to see again. he wanted to see so he and another senator went with marian wright and peter edelman, marian wright went and she came and took time in washington and it was, he had never seen poverty like that,

as bad as it was. and he went back and immediately pushed to get more federal aid but it had a huge impact on him and it horrified him. it just kept them going but he wanted the country to see and they had hearings and brought people to washington to try and put a spotlight on this. and to really push or the federal government to expand into the poverty programs. around the country. it's a great question number. >> here's another one. this question asks about a 1968 late-night meeting in west oakland. okay, 1968, west oakland book

ended the baldwin one. the baldwin meeting, i guess the one we discussed before. discuss how rfk's approach had changed and why you went and why he tried to translate the session into action. i guess the questioner also wants to ask didn't the open meeting also garnered the get out the votesupport for the black community for the primary >> it certainly helped . that's the gravitation about the other side's involvement in the meeting. kennedy understood that people were angry and hewas going to catch it . so as part of the california primary he went to a church in oakland at 10:00 at night and he took rayford johnson with him and john glenn who wascampaigning with him . and off they go and he said

says to them just be quiet. it's going to be rough but don't worry. and he got up there and he started. this is wrong, that is wrong, we need to dothis , why didn't you do that and he answered and talked about the practices. it's kind of a lawyer argument and he responded and at one point rayford johnson wanted to get up because he was so angry and he said this is between them and me and it went on . louis brown was the moderator and so they finally brought it toa close and there was , biting of hands, a real sense of what reached him and this discussion and then went back to their own town and john glenn said well, i don't think you have to many votes tonight and lewis said no, they're going to turn out. they're going to work and they next day tom berkley and

african-american newspaper publisher helped organize people calling him, wanting to help and yes, people joined up and worked on the get out the vote campaign and it was such a, then he went back to oakland the next day. he was supposed to go somewhere else and spoke to the community and had a big rally. so it was a great moment but he understood that you have to listen and be there. and to be responsive and of course, in the primary i think he got 96 percent of the african-american vote in oakland and a huge voter turnout . so yes. that's a good observation. >> it's interesting when i hear you say that i forget the way you phrased it earlier. about the, hecame, he did this and he listened . seems like he is continually listening to people who were

really willing to tell him in a very aggressive way that you're not doing it. and that you reach some of those people even though they didn't necessarily agree with everything that is particular approach . >> one thing about that that we were talking about liberals before, and of the people in the african-american activist said he's not, he's not one of the last liberals. these last of the great believable's. the last of the great believable. >> could you expand on that, what does that mean? the last of the great believable's. >> of people with referring to what he said. he didn't overpromise, he listened, he said what he thought and that's again, coming from a amy baldwin said, he's a different guy. a different kind of political figure so i think truth telling isbelievable . and trust in that is

concerned. >>. >> here's another question. how much did jfk's assassination open a allowed bobby to feel and see things typically by 1968. then he had prior to november 22, 1968. >> maybe that's too speculative . >> when i wrote about president kennedy's assassination i was 13 when he was assassinated and i remember. it was just awful and terrible. but writing about it, i experienced it in a different way. i knew it was going to happen but when it happened, writing about robert kennedy in that moment, i talked to those who

knew him then. then those communities and it was devastating in ways that are indescribable. but how it impacted him, people say maybe it will say he changed and people closest to him said no, it was always himself. but what his law professors said and really this is interesting. he said more about kaplan he said he was backing his brother. he took care of his brother. he did it so they worked in tandem and he said once he was gone, he said bobby became more and morehimself . he moved into his public life and again, bringing the concerns that he had developed and so it's very interesting when you think about that but it's for the

rest of his life there was this deep loss. but notion that being changed, it continued on and it put all this energy into that he cared about. >>. >> here's a question, back in the critical vein of questioning. there's one that you thought about before. the question goes like this. how should we look at kennedy's complicated relationship with martin luther king? wiretapping him. following hoover's instructions against king. i think that's a question to be asking about the fact that robert kennedy authorized the wiretaps of martin luther king. should we think about that? >> you to read my bookbecause i was concerned about that . that's one of the nutshell's.

very complicated, hoover's pressure and hoover's power, you know he knew that came was that hoover kept pressing and the whole levinson thing where they were talking. so when he finally, i don't want to get too deeply into it but but the pressure to hoover's pressure and the evidence he had, that martin that he wouldn't seek levinson and all that so finally in october 2013, 63 the agreed to a temporary 30 day wiretap on kings phone in atlanta and new york.

and as you read about courtney evans, he did it. and there are a couple of reasons people speculate. hoover had things on the president, on his private life and the civil rights bill. this is october. they're fighting to get the civil rights bill moved through the committee. this hoover leaks to the press as he would often do that came and his calmness connections or whatever, they were big. and so i think it was an attempt, i'm speculating here also to keep that day. but again president kennedy was killed a month later. president johnson came in and johnson was close to her and had no problem and had different feelings with king. so yes, it came late and i hope the questioner will read about it in the book because

i gave this a lot of thought. it certainly does not diminish and in fact fast-forward. robert kennedy and martin luther king come much more closely aligned as time goes forward.they have concerns aboutpoverty , their concerns about the war in vietnam and there's a wonderful scene in these hearings on conditions in the city which was part of where he and king soliloquy about the conditions and what to do so that relationship grew and they both were so closely -- i mean, what they saw as the problems and the solutions were very close and their opposition to the war in vietnam as well so it was interesting to see how their relationship developed after

64, 65. i mean, it was never distant and they weren't at odds but they became much more closely aligned around the issue of poverty, disease and war. >> okay. here's a possible question so i'm going to read the whole thing. from the moment i read i think a person is saying red, from the moment i read robert kennedy's work he always seemed like a brain to me. someone who could keep things in order and keep working. but a bit reluctant to take, to be the image. i think maybe be the public figure. even after john's murder, robert continued with his theories a little longer jan the complicated relationship he had with lbj. what do you think was bobby's point, the moment when he

understood that he had to the strength and power to fight for the senate and then in the race for the presidency. >> that's a great question. >> when he stayed through 6040 he really he and his team were critical to getting the civil rights bill through he carried that through, they completed the work that he and his brother had begun. but in 65, i think by 1966 he campaigned in the midtermsfor other candidates . and the press was transformed that he would become a terrific publicspeaker, energetic, charismatic . really well, just fully engaged in the work of politics, the senate and the

causes he led. i think it took time. one of adam wilensky noted today that robert kennedy stopped wearing a black tie and it was when they were in latin america that he was a couple of years after president kennedy. so you know, i think there was a gradual but they're always working but coming into his own. i think certainly by 66. he is fully coming into his own. >> here's a different kind of question. what role did robert kennedy's catholic faith play in his political life. >> i think his faith was formative. it's hard. he went to church on sundays.

but it's more than that. he had a deep faith and he was of the social justice i think. i mean, it's hard to identify specifically. i have moments in the book where i look at that but he was a deeply spiritual person and he was i think his catholic faith was a formative force in his life and i think how he moved forward and what he achieved i think that was an important part of his strength with other factors too. it's hard to single one out but i think you know, he was a kind of catholic who did not hesitate to challenge clergy . he was his own person. he had his that kind of faith that he was responsible for and john xxiii was pope

earlier. i think that having influence on him he was here for the poor. public service, living that kind of life. so. >> so we got three minutes. time for one lastquestion. i think this is an appropriate last question to . this questioner asked about the title of your book. the question is can the professor commented on her selection of the title ofthe book , "justice rising: robert kennedy's america in blackand white" . why did you choose that title? >> injustice rising, that sounded good but now i know what it means . and the robert kennedy's america black and white, it's him moving through our country in that way but injustice rising is this convergence in this period of

first of all the civil rights struggle. it's been going on for decades but by 1960 he turned brooklyn into this true in a way that demanded national attention and action and then it impacted again, it's a cold war political culture and energized american engagements and particularly among young people. and you had the kennedy administration coming in and being in sync with that. so together all these differentforces that come together in the early 60s . justice is rising and it's back, it had impacts that was difficult to measure. we can look at civil rights ask but we're sitting here talking about this today and i think not everything was achieved. you have this backlash at the

end of the decade but justice keeps rising in ways that were formative and historically significant. and i think they had tremendous lessons but again it's a convergence and that that the kennedys are an equal part of that. it responded to it and helped to contribute in that time of movement. >> question from which to add, that is actually is in reverse, this is the book, justice rising. robert kennedy's america in black and white by patricia. amazing book. i read the whole thing. i recommend our listeners get out and read it as you said, pat and various points, all these are complicated questions and what we're doing in the book is mobilizing all the evidence. around those two sort out things about the wiretapping's . so it's wellworth reading . so thank you, professor

patricia sellers for the kennedy library forum. thank you to the audience for coming and for your wonderful questions. and thank you to the kennedy library for inviting both of us to appear . >> my thanks to you all. you can so much and everybody . >>