What Fear and Hate Have Wrought

After my 8/30 post, I got to thinking a bit longer about the leaders we’ve lost over the years at the hands of people who somehow were able to act on their anger and dissatisfaction with deadly results.

Assassinations have left us with a lot of “what ifs?” Do we ever really put such pain behind us? Do we ever stop to think about how things might have been different if these people had not had their lives cut short?

I’m not familiar with the circumstances or the beefs people had with Garfield and McKinley, but I’ve spent time reading up on Lincoln and was in 4th grade when JFK was shot. To this day, certain images and feelings from that weekend in 1963 are seared into my psyche. I was only 9, but I was affected by the grief and shock that was evident among family members and on the faces of those featured in the newsreels.

In subsequent years, we might wonder how things would have been different if Kennedy or Lincoln had gone on to serve their full terms. In Lincoln’s case, Andrew Johnson turned out to be a less than effective stand-in when it came to Reconstruction. Who knows how or if things would be different today if Lincoln had had a chance to oversee the efforts to rebuild and heal after the Civil War?

In Kennedy’s case, the whole Camelot vibe was probably destined to flame out, but it was his style and optimism and sense of humor, his ability to capture peoples’ imaginations with ambitious ideas, and his willingness to appeal to our better angels.

As George Carlin observed, for some reason we weren’t and still aren’t ready for such people, the ones who call us to find ways to live together peacably and care for each other. Lincoln, Kennedy, MLK, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, John Lennon, Gandhi, Jesus…

We’re hobbled, wounded, and diminished by such violence, robbed of potential victories and growth. Such events are jarring, unnerving, and disorienting. It leaves many wondering who, if anyone, can come along to fill the voids and replace the ones we’ve lost. And we more often than not discover that they were all one of a kind, with their own unique voice and perspectives.

But still we wait for the next ones to shine long enough to leave their mark and move us further along that road to some better place.