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Speaker 1: We live in a society where there is so much

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going on all at one time. How are you expected

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to keep up? Arrow dot net A R r Oe

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dot Net. Not one podcast. There are seventeen to choose

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from because it deals with everyday life and how we

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are moving through it. Arro dot Net. Thank you so

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much for your support. Good morning, Chris. How are you

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doing today?

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Speaker 2: Good morning Arrow? I'm fine. I'm but lowid saw I

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going for two hours of this, but I think I

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got it. That's so boyd Well.

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Speaker 1: In that two hour conversation that you're having with so

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many people across this beautiful nation. Has anybody brought up

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the fact that the reason why I am so glued

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to lessons from Bobby, and I'm telling you I am

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glued to it is because I'm trying to understand Pambondy

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even more because I believe in my heart Bobby set

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the standard. Bobby has always been the standard.

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Speaker 2: Let's do this on the air. I'm ready, I'm.

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Speaker 1: Ready to rock when you are, man, what is your

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vibe on that?

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Speaker 2: Okay, let me just tell you here's the difference between

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Pambondia Attorney General today and Bobby Kennedy, for whom The

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building of the Justice Department was named after by George W. Bush.

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President Bush, let me tell you he took his orders

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from the federal courts. When the federal courts said, you

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have to let people who are black ride interstate buses.

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You can't put him in the black waiting room. You

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can't tell him to use the only black bastom around.

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You got to let him ride like everybody else, in

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the front of the bus, middle of the bus, wherever

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he was the one doing. Supporting that. He was supporting

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the federal ruling that James Meredith, who had applied properly

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to old myths to go there and did everything right

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and served in the military, did everything right, filled out

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the application, asked the Justice Department to help him get

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his civil rights. He got in there and today not

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just the SEC football teams, but his statues on the

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campus there for being admitted as the first African American

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back in sixty two. Same thing with George Walls. He

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did all that stuff to open up civil rights and

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at the same time, this is what's interesting and would

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make them different. He believed in law and order. Yes,

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he believed that people in the streets have to obay

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the law. Even if Martin Luther King gets killed, you

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still have to stop burning down the cities. You have

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to obey the law. And a lot of liberals do

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not say that loud and clear.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that really fires me up as

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a journalist as well as a fan of our US

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government is the fact that you include Bobby's most famous

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messages in this We need this. I need to have

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full documentation in my hands and so I can read

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it and digest it and do it over and over again.

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And you were not afraid to put those messages in

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this book.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I've studied the Kennedy's. I know their

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difference is there's the difference between Jack and Bobby. Jack

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with a tough leader, a little bit cold, a little

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bit brutal in a way of ruthless, if you will. Bobby,

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when I do all the studies, comes out as the

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real human being who understood nuance. He didn't particularly like

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Lynnon Johnson, for example, but I think he understood the

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way things work and the way you have to be

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and variety. When you lose an election, you got to

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be able to take a loss, and he did.

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Speaker 1: He was.

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Speaker 2: He took that loss in Oregon right before he got killed,

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and pat U Cannon was in the audience that said

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he couldn't have done a better job accepting defeats than

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he could if he'd won that election. Uh. He impressed

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his enemies.

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Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Chris Matthews coming

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up next. The name of the book, Lessons from Bobby

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ten Reasons why Robert F. Kennedy Still Matters. We are

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back with Chris Matthews. You opened the book with a

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quote from John Lewis. I sat there and I was

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I just embraced it as what I did. I did

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did not jump onto the next page immediately because I

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really wanted to feel what John was putting. And then

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and it's it's just one of those things where it

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just it sets the tone for the entire book, John Lewis.

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Speaker 2: John Lewis said in that quote that he believed in

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Robert Kennedy is somebody that can unify and save people

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if you will. He also said, after Martin Luther King

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had been killed and Jack Kenny had been killed, he

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said to himself, but we still have Bobby. And when

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Bobby was going it was he went with him into

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Indianapolis that I the King was killed. Doctor King was killed.

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He was the one who was with him when he

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was had to tell the crowd of African Americans a

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tough neighborhood, your hero, the hero of the country in

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many ways, has just been shot by a white guy.

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And then he said something very surprising for him. He said,

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a member of my family was also killed by a

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white guy. Now, when I heard that, I said, well,

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that doesn't make any sense, because if a white guy

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kills a white an, it's not a racial issue. Was

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just something else, something from Castro or something involved with it.

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But he said it in a way to say, I

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know what suffering is. I think it was just remarkable.

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And I don't know how many people that had the

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police said, we're not going into that neighborhood with it,

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no shot down guard tonight. It's not going to have that.

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You're going in there on your own. And he had

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to be told at the last minute by a guy

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who was standing next to with the microphone on. They

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don't know yet. We don't have any social media back then,

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no who cell phones. We don't know. The community here

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doesn't know that King has been killed by a white

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coup and he had to tell them.

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Speaker 1: It was something you bring something up in the book

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that I used as a quote this past week because

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Charlotte was dealing with a transit issue in the way

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that we were voting, and I quoted, or I came

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really close to quoting your book when I said, you've

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got to look to the train tracks to where the

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real city is because and I pulled that from your book,

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because I believe that you are so spot on when

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it comes to that look to the train tracks.

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Speaker 2: You know, one thing I discovered in my brain when

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I was working on this today was that who lives

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closest to the train tracks? Yep, it's not the other

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side of the tracks. It's poor people. The real estate

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within the train tracks noise, which is relentless, is cheap.

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The people they don't afford housing within walking distance of

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a train tracks in the Northeast especially, but every place

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it's cheap. So white people and black people both share

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the same real estate. And in the case of Bobby

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Kennedy's train going by there when he was his body

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was on that plane train, the black people in Philadelphia,

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I grew up twenty thousand people strong singing the battle

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himn of the Republic, the Civil War sun and in

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between the tracks between Philadelphia and Trenton, Trenton and Newark

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were white people standing in the right next to the tracks,

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in many cases saluting, which made me think they were

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enlisted guys in the army saluting with their family. There

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were birth orders standing next to them, saluting their hero,

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Robert Kennedy, And I go, how did that happen? How

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did the black people say? This guy's opening the door

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for us the soul rights and this guy not just

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in the South, but this guy is doing this. And

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he was honestly saying, I'm learning, he said. At one

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point he said, I didn't lose a lot of sleep

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over negroes. He actually used the old term which everybody

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used time properly speaking before Jesse Jackson got us all

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saying African Americans, I believe. And he was saying that honestly,

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I wasn't a big civil rights advocate. And then he

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saw what the head of his top eight, John siegen Thorp,

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had his head bashed in into Montgomery during the Freedom rides,

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and he saw the angry of the white crowds oh

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Miss and Oxford, the anger of those people who didn't

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want James Burder to go to their school, even though

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he had applied properly, he'd been in the military, done

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everything right, and they didn't want him there. And today

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we have SEC crowds going crazy over integrated football teams.

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It's just very different.

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Speaker 1: Would you say that that Bobby Kennedy sat with the

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people because that's how I grew up watching and basically

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embracing Bobby because that always inspired me that he was

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with the people. And I think that's why I became

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a broadcaster, because Bobby was with the people.

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Speaker 2: Well, let me give you a real extreme example. Remember

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you probably read about this. He would go through crowds

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in LA and people would be an open car. Unbelievable.

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He'd ride an open car, you know, he'd be an

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open car, people grabbing. They were not just his couplings,

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but everything on him. They would take from him. They

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would somehow would get his shoes. I could never forget

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how you got a guy's shoot. They would pull his

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shoes off. And he said, right before he died, he said,

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you know, you can go give speeches to people, but

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they don't really connect with you until they physically get

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cold in you. Unless they grab you, and he sort

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of said, I'm doing this maybe instinctively, but I know

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the only way I can connect with some of these

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sometimes angry crowds is to let them touch me.

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Speaker 1: Yep.

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Speaker 2: And in the end, you know, somebody said this is

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beautifully right, and it was Jack Neil Newfield said this

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original He dealt with the and financeers and astronauts and celebrities,

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movie stars, and yet he was killed reaching for the

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hand of a seventy five hour a week Mexican American dishwasher.

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That was Bobby's life.

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Speaker 1: You got to come back to this show anytime in

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the future. Ten minutes, you know, is never enough with you, Chris,

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but you continue to push his strength forward and I

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just cannot wait to talk with you again about everything

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that you're exploring.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Eric, so much. Good luck for you.

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Speaker 1: Be brilliant today.

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Speaker 2: Okay, sir, thank you