Raw television outtakes of New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy arriving Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), where he was compelled to run a gauntlet of reporters before boarding a propeller aircraft for Delano, Calif., March 10, 1968. WALKING THE GAUNTLET No sooner had the senator deplaned than he was at the center of a swirling vortex of insistent print, radio and television reporters. In a walking news conference, they peppered Kennedy with questions about his presidential ambitions, if any; whether or not he would support liberal Minnesota Senator Eugene J. McCarthy, an insurgent anti-Vietnam war candidate, or endorse the increasingly unpopular President Lyndon B. Johnson in that year's Democratic party presidential contest; if he would support Los Angeles Mayor Samuel W. Yorty (who detested Kennedy and had his feelings returned in full measure) in his US Senate bid; and other matters. However, it was only after Kennedy mentioned his reason for traveling to the small, grape-growing town of Delano in the state's fertile Central Valley that reporters finally asked him about it. MISSION TO DELANO There Kennedy would join an estimated 6000-10000 persons, mostly Chicano, or Mexican American, migrant workers, gathered to hold a "Mass of Thanksgiving" at Memorial Park for Cesar E. Chavez, president of the United Farm Workers (UFW), a union seeking to organize migrant farm laborers to improve their wages, education, housing and legal protections, including recognition of <b>...</b>
Robert F. Kennedy Sr.
LAX
Delano
California
Eugene mccarthy
Lyndon Johnson
1968 Presidential Election
Samuel Yorty
Chicanos
Mexican Americans
Cesar Chavez
United Farm Workers
Martin Luther King Jr.
Peter Edelman
Edward Guthman
John Seigenthaler
Nonviolence
Fast
pauldarwinlee
