The one time I was in the room with Edward Kennedy was almost 26 years ago, for an afternoon announcement of the Senate's passage of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday bill. Senator Kennedy, and others, including Coretta Scott King, stood to the right of the podium, as Bob Dole, the Republican senator from Kansas, the Senate's majority leader, and the King bill's floor manger spoke.

Earlier, in the Senate chamber during the floor debate, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina tried to block a vote by making a continuous speech from the floor, permitted under Senate rules. Senator Helms used the now-too-common devices of attack politics and outlandish, exaggerated character smears to bring specious charges against Dr. King. In one of the great ironies of Senate speech making, Helms contended that King's very name “remained” a “deeply troubling symbol of a divided society."

At one point, Helms described Dr. King's civil rights strategies as “action-oriented Marxism.” Dr. King, Senator Helms contended, had widely known associations with well known Marxists, handing out FBI surveillance report to support his views. Later asked if Dr. King was a Marxist, Senator Helms replied, “I don't think there is any question about that.”

Another tact Senator Helms took was to claim the costs of a King holiday would be prohibitively high, perhaps running into the billions. (The CBO estimate ran closer to 18 million.) Finally, Helms argued the bill had been “steamrollered” through the Senate without a committee hearing. Helms concluded that a national holiday for Dr. King was “not compatible with the concepts of this country.”

Later, for his floor remarks, Senator Helms received thousands of letters of support.

His colleagues on the floor were not so supportive. Senator Storm Thurmond of South Carolina, then Chair of the Judiciary Committee, and other leaders of the Senate, boldly filed a rare petition for closure to cut off the debate, ending Senator Helms' filibuster. With debate ended, the bill was brought to vote.

In an irony of linked paradoxes, the tactics Helms employed against the bill Kennedy so highly favored shadows today's politics, especially the debate around another bill Kennedy highly regarded, national health care reform.

On the Senate floor that October day in 1983 the vibrant, fire-breathing orator, “the lion of the Senate," Kennedy was determined to bring forth light from the shadows Helms tried to cast.

Senator Arlen Spector, then a Republican, also spoke against Helms' remarks and challenged his character portrait of Dr. King. But Senator Kennedy with the depth of the nation's moral force booming through his Boston Irish family brogue, left no doubt about his feeling towards Helms' attacks on Dr. King, or his own unshakeable passion for the right actions that propelled the bill's passage. Indeed, even its opponents declared the King bill opned a new chapter in our national life.

On October, 19, 1983, the Senate passed the King Holiday bill by a vote of 78 to 22 (18 Republicans and 4 Democrats against, 37 Republicans and 41 Democrats for). And after Senators Bob Dole and Strom Thurmond met with President Ronald Reagan at the White House about the bill, Reagan signed it in a Rose Garden ceremony with over 200 people present, giving the first signing pen to Mrs. Coretta Scott King.

Senator Kennedy's light loomed over these and other legislative events. Even as some events took place without the work of his hand, the strength of his influence was felt. His leadership propelled a course in an institution that had once sat Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay, and Massachusetts' John Adams and Daniel Webster, and SC's John C. Calhoun. The Kennedy course was writ large in government actions for public benefit, both symbolic and real, and the results, like Head Start, are now a taken-for-granted part of the national fabric.

I don't remember whether the announcement was in a room in the Russell or Dirksen building, but I do remember Senator Kennedy's sheer exuberance filled the room when it was his turn to speak, the big booming cadences of his voice celebrating a mission achieved, the tone of his voice capturing the moment rather commenting on it. His gracious recognition of Bob Dole stands out, in recall, and his sly dig at Regan, who he “hoped” would sign the bill--a sly remainder of the President's earlier opposition. (Regan, in fact, had signaled he would not veto the bill if the Senate passed it.)

While Senator Kennedy had appetites, his ego was about others. While some may only remember the litany of his personal failings, it is hard not to realize how the force of his personality stood in the national well, cloaking Bob Dole as Senator Dole rejected the politics of Jesse Helms.

In our short sighted obessiveness, we also lose the character of mercy. Mercy is the oil of human life, it lubricates its gears. Mercy allows for re-starts after stumbles. Mercy tempers our outlook, believing that more than second chances, life holds special assignments. Mercy is important in the final assessment of life overall, its invisible hand made known by the strength of its temper.

“An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind,” said Dr. King.



Edward Moore Kennedy
1932 - 2009












Walter Rhett has written over a 100 posts for Southern Perlo from Kudu Coffee in Charleston. Follow him at twitter.com/walterrhett