What We Lost, 40 Years Ago Today

Today is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Jeff Greenfield at CBS Sunday Morning, who worked with Kennedy, did a remarkable reflection on his life last week.

He has been gone almost as long as he was alive, and from a distance of four decades, Robert Kennedy is often seen as a player in a pageant: heir to a murdered President from America's most famous political family … a tumultuous presidential campaign in a tumultuous political year that ended on the floor of a hotel kitchen in Los Angeles.

And below is one of the most extraordinary extemporaneous speeches in American history, all the more remarkable if you know all the context behind it. It was a risky moment, a passionate moment, a perfectly expressed American moment.

Keep hope alive.