Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968. Following dual victories in California and South Dakota, Kennedy spoke to journalists and workers at a live televised celebration from the stage. Shortly after leaving the podium and exiting through a kitchen hallway, he was shot several times by 22-year-old Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan. This news shocked the nation.
Kennedy’s body was taken to New York City for a funeral mass in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. After the completion of the mass, Kennedy’s coffin was transported by a private funeral train from New York to Washington, D.C., to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery on June 8. Thousands of people lined the track to watch and pay their respect. The train made the 225-mile trip in 8 hours.
Photographer Paul Fusco documented the grievances, mourning faces, tributes, and patriotic displays along the way. The collection of photographs ended up becoming more than a document of Kennedy’s final journey.
I was using low-speed color film, I was on a moving train, I was photographing moving subjects, my shutter speeds were getting lower and lower, and yet there were still endless numbers of mourners I was trying to photograph. Said Paul Fusco.
