For the Press: May 27, 2008 Media Advisory

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Historic Speeches 1968

The Pacifica Radio Archives (PRA) has recently discovered and restored three historic reel-to-reel audio tape recordings which capture and transmit RFK’s message.

• June 4, 1968, moments before his assassination, Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles
• May 24, 1968, with Republican business executives at the Beverly Hilton, Los Angeles
• April 19, 1968, speech at the Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles before business and financial executives sponsored by the Town Hall of Southern California. Includes question-and-answer session

A young and vital Democratic United States Senator battles to win his party's nomination for President. He speaks out against an unpopular war, environmental destruction, racial inequality and mounting economic injustice. About to deliver a pivotal speech, he was
assassinated on June 4, 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California.

"For all of our wealth, and all of our power, all of our statistics of our gross national product [GNP], cannot make up the satisfaction, the purpose, and the dignity of our lives... [T]he gross national product... counts air pollution, jails, the destruction of the redwoods... the equipment for police to put down riots, and television programs that glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children." —Robert F. Kennedy, June 4, 1968

RFK's words convey a relevance and urgency as true to us now, as they did 40 years ago. In the temperature and humidity-controlled vaults of the Pacifica Radio Archives in Los Angeles are his compelling and prophetic words as broadcast on the first alternative, listener-supported radio stations in the nation: KPFA (Berkeley), KPFK (Los Angeles), WBAI (NYC), WPFW (D.C.), KPFT (Houston, TX).

These recordings are available to students, scholars, educators, authors, artists and documentarians.

Contact: Brian DeShazor 800.735.0230 ext 263, bdeshazor@pacificaradioarchives.org

For more information about these, and other recently restored recordings from the Pacifica Radio Archives, check out the 1968 Revolution Rewind Project on your local Pacifica Radio station, or on this site.

Funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.