It was 40 years ago today that Robert F. Kennedy, having just won the California Democratic Party Primary (a huge deal) and on his way to speak with hotel workers in the hotel’s kitchen, was shot, mortally wounded, and subsequently died. This, just two months following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

What many of us are too young to remember is that Bobby was probably the last major national candidate who embraced workers and their plight most seriously. Yes, Ralph Nader has done in on third party ballots. John Edwards was doing it until he was forced to suspend his campaign late in the winter just as Howard Dean, who also stood with workers, had done four years before after the “yeehaw” heard round the world from the Iowa primary.

See my next post (up) for why this matters so much now, why we need to look at what’s happening to Americans and how to halt the damage.