JFK & RFK Made Me Do It

Download or read book JFK & RFK Made Me Do It written by Sweet William and published by Peace Corps Writers. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fast-paced, fact-packed memoir of The Sixties, a veteran social activist recalls the idealism of the Kennedy Brothers' push for peace and how it shaped him and others to become peacemakers. The Brothers eloquently laid out their peace agenda - from JFK's call in 1960 to join the New Frontier to RFK's "End the War" Presidential Campaign of 1968. JFK's "Strategy of Peace" speech made in June of '63 motivated a recently graduated UCLA couple to join the Peace Corps, and go to Peru. This richly informed memoir documents how these two Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs), and others, made a difference in U.S. international relations in ways that money could never buy. The emotional heart of this book is the emergence of RFK. Following his 1964 election to the U.S. Senate, he visited Peru and met with PCVs serving in both urban and rural locations. We learn how that trip influenced RFK's views on aiding the impoverished, and who caused the demise of JFK's billion-dollar assistance program for Latin America - The Alliance for Progress. Following their Peace Corps service, the couple returned to Los Angeles. and took employment with UCLA starting on Jan. 1, 1967. On June 23, 1967 they participated in LA's first anti-war march. The peaceful protest ended in a vicious police riot against the protestors, and radicalized the couple. Many coalesced around Robert Kennedy's 1968 campaign for the Presidency, including our eyewitness activist, author Sweet William. We are introduced to the elements of social activism, and to charismatic protest leaders. From this insightful history, we learn when Mexican Americans became Chicanos. We also learn that in Chimbote - "the smelliest place in Peru" - exactly what JFK had hoped Peace Corps Volunteers would accomplish happened - peasants were emboldened to become presidents. With eyewitness reports, excerpts of speeches, photos - all greatly enhanced by the growing body of research into the Kennedy Era, JFK & RFK Made Me Do It: 1960-1968 - this book has everything that is needed to become immersed in Sixties idealism. But alas, the Kennedy Brothers' nighttime burials at Arlington Cemetery - the only veterans ever to be buriedthere at night - put an end to their "strategy of peace."