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Kenneth ClarkKenneth Clark
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your reminiscing that came up, that might not be in your reminiscing for Oral History?

Clark:

I think I told you about that May, 1963, meeting with Bob Kennedy, didn't I?

Q:

Yes.

Clark:

Well, we spent a great deal of time on that today.

I told you, Arthur (Schlesinger) is writing this book about Kennedy. I might have gone into a little more detail about my impressions of Bobby Kennedy in that meeting, you know. His response to (James) Baldwin, when he said to the group that he thought that we should be patient, in a way, it would just be another few years, or something of that sort, before an American black will be running for national office -- or something of that sort.

And Baldwin looked at him and said, “You know, I have to tell you-- your grandfather came over here from Ireland, just a generation or so ago, and your brother is President. My ancestors came over here a couple of hundred years ago on a slave ship, and you have the right, only through race and color, to tell me when I can participate in this government.”

Well, Bobby got red, and he was closer to losing his control in that interchange than in any other time during the three or four hours of that highly traumatic meeting.

And it was interesting to me that Arthur's interview with other people, such as Burke Marshall, others -- that he says that





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