Ethan J. Leib is a law professor at the University of California-Hastings.
April 4th marked the 53rd anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. That night in 1968, presidential candidate Robert Kennedy broke the news to an Indianapolis crowd gathered for one of his rallies. “Listening to the speech decades later is to be reminded of the real power of words,” writes Tim Wendel in this 2012 essay. “How they can heal, how they can still bring us together, but only if they are spoken with conviction and from the heart.”