Bibliographic List of Sources:

Kennedy, Robert F. “Statement on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., 4 April 1968.” Audio Copy. Robert F. Kennedy Speeches. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/H0SE-5I0kUyRrXmWyQRsIw.aspx. [=A]

Kennedy, Robert F. “Statement on the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.” In Words of a Century: The Top 100 American Speeches, 1900-1999. Eds. Stephen E. Lucas and Martin J. Medhurst. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. [=B]

Kennedy, Robert F. “Statement by Senator Robert F. Kennedy on the Death of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Rally in Indianapolis, Indiana, 4 April 1968.” Robert F. Kennedy Papers: Senate Papers: Speeches and Press Releases, 1965 – 1968. National Archives. https://research.archives.gov/id/194037. [=C]

Statement of Editorial Procedures:

The copy-text is Kennedy’s 1968 [=A], an audio recording of the delivered statement. This selection was based on the plausible efficacy of the delivered speech at 17th and Broadway, Indianapolis, Indiana.

The text follows the paragraphing, spelling and punctuation of the version printed by Lucas and Medhurst [=B]. The title comes from the title given by his campaign in their press release, available through the National Archives [=C].

Paragraph numbers have been added in square brackets.

The text of this edition has been thoroughly checked and proofread by Cole Crouch and Jeffrey P. Mehltretter Drury.

All double quotation marks are rendered with “, all single quotation marks with apostrophe ‘.

The copy text is not subject to end-of-line hyphenation.

Special characters and characters with diacritical marks: none.

Departures from the copy-text and general editorial procedures are as follows (reference numbers specify paragraph in which the departure occurs):

7 compassion of which B: compassion that which A

9 Let us B: And want A