President Kennedy at American University June 10, 1963
Sunday was the 57th anniversary of the assassination of President John Kennedy. I can still remember being in second grade when our teacher shared that tragic news with us. My childhood memories of the next several days are a blur of pervasive sadness both by the adults around me and those featured on what seemed like endless news coverage that preempted the normal schedule of cartoons on TV. It was decades later that I learned about the speech President Kennedy gave at the graduation ceremony of American University on June 10, 1963. In that speech, the President called for replacing the traditional Cold War rhetoric about Russia with greater levels of understanding of our common humanity and focused efforts to reduce the threat of nuclear war. Although so much has changed since that time, I want to share some quotes from that speech that apply to the deep divisions in our own country as we prepare for a change in Presidential administrations:
There is no single, simple key to this peace; no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process — a way of solving problems.
And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors. So let us persevere.
So let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.
Growing up as a Baby Boomer, it was unimaginable that conflict with the “evil empire” of the Soviet Union would end without widespread or even apocalyptic violence and bloodshed. For many people today, it is nearly unimaginable for the deep divisions in our country to be addressed apart from hateful rhetoric and even violence. Yet as we prepare for Thanksgiving in the midst of a surging pandemic, may we reflect on and commit to the way of peace articulated by President Kennedy in 1963 that is based on our shared humanity as children of God.
The videos posted below include reflections by those who heard the speech followed by a recording of the speech itself.