- And I've looked over and I've seen the Promised Land.

I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land.

(crowd cheers) (1960s protest music) - [Narrator] 1968, 12 of the most tumultuous and tragic months in our nation's history.

The Vietnam War raged at a seemingly uncontrollable pace.

President Johnson's popularity plummeted as the war escalated.

A strong anti-war sentiment in the country gave rise to presidential candidates Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy.

McCarthy had been the first to split the Democratic Party.

His strong showing in the New Hampshire primary indicated that bitter feelings toward the war ran deep and long.

Robert Kennedy decided that it was time to make his bid for the presidency.

- He, I think, personified an opportunity for change, for a change in direction, especially in the war, and also in terms of race relations.

- [Narrator] Having already missed the first round of primaries, Kennedy had to gain momentum fast in the next major primary in Indiana.

- If he could win in Indiana, he was gonna go on to Oregon and California, two states he thought he'd do fairly well, and especially California.

So I think there was a strong feeling that this was a very, it was a key state for him.

- [Narrator] As Kennedy campaigned throughout the Hosier state, he gained a powerful ally in Indiana's civil rights leader Reverend Andrew Brown.

Brown was the head of the Indiana Christian Leadership Conference, and a family friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Kennedy's persona left a lasting impression on the Brown family.

- He was soft spoken, but he was very intense, very knowledgeable of what was around, what was happening.

Very aware of our, "the Black" problems.

And I guess he just had this sense of kinsmanship.

Oh, you felt you could trust him, maybe I'll put it that way.

- [Narrator] His campaign was a whirlwind of unrefined activity.

Still, his name and his brother's legacy made him a celebrity, the object of adoring mayhem that consistently poured through the streets of Indiana.

- Yeah, there were street corner rallies, they were neighborhood rallies, and people would swarm out on the street to greet his motorcade.

It was almost a mood of celebration.

People would gather around and cheer and they would clutch for things, they'd clutch for pieces of his clothing or cuff links.

And he would try to keep the crowd controlled, "Settle down, settle down," and try to get his message across.

It was really quite an amazing moment.

We hadn't seen the likes of that in Indiana.

- When he'd come back from a campaign swing, his hands would be raw from people scratching him as they reached just to touch him or to shake his hand.

They'd take his cuff links.

One night they pulled him out of his car in a parade and he chipped his tooth, lost a cap off his tooth, and about 10:30 at night, I got a call to arrange for a dentist for the next morning so that he could keep his schedule.

- [Narrator] On April 4th, Kennedy spoke to a student group at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend.

After flying down for a quick campaign stop in Muncie, he was scheduled to speak at a rally outside the Broadway Christian Center in the heart of Indianapolis' African American community.

While Kennedy campaigned in Muncie, a shot rang out in Memphis, Tennessee.

(gun fires) Within an hour, Martin Luther King Jr. was dead.

- Kennedy and his entourage was to stop at the headquarters before proceeding to the park at 17th and Broadway.

When news came to the headquarters of the assassination, we made sure that news got to Kennedy and to those people right around him.

I think the chief of police at the time and the mayor both thought that it was an unnecessary risk, and I think Kennedy concluded that the risk was really minimal and that the greater risk was not to address the provocative acts that had occurred in Memphis earlier that day.

- [Narrator] At the park, a large crowd eagerly waited more than two hours to greet the candidate.

News had not reached the group about King's assassination.

Kennedy arrived.

He was physically composed, but spiritually shaken.

He stared solemnly into the crowd.

- The speech was incredible.

It was spontaneous, it was touching, it was moving.

It was just the right thing at the right time.

One of probably his shining moment in this campaign.

- For those of you who are Black and are attempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling.

I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States.

We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond or go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poem, my favorite poet, was Aeschylus.

And he once wrote "Even in our sleep pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

- The people that he was talking to, they didn't wanna desecrate the memory of Dr. King.

And the fact that he was here just made it great.

It was like, "Here's a friend."

- I don't think that it's an accident that Indianapolis was spared the kind of violence that went on so many places, in literally hundreds of large cities.

I've got to think that Kennedy's presence and his speech had a lot to do with that.

It's one of the most amazing extemporaneous speeches, I'd say, in the history of this country.

- Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings, and what dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago, to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world, let us dedicate ourselves to that and say a prayer for our country and for our people.

Thank you very much.

(crowd cheers) - There wasn't hate in our community.

We knew that there was nothing ever in violence anyway.

We worked at nonviolence.

And the fact that he showed up just at the right time was a blessing.

- [Narrator] In Kennedy's final speech, he described America as a great country and a compassionate country.

Certainly, for many Hoosiers on one tragic night, Kennedy was the embodiment of greatness and compassion, soothing fears, and restoring hope to a state and a nation.

- Why?

I think a lot of it was why?

Why is all this necessary?

Why does this have to be this way?

And I guess history will never let us know exactly why.

(patriotic drum beat) - [Narrator] For more Across Indiana stories, go to wfyi.org/acrossindiana.