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.
#1 Mourners line the tracks to bid farewell to Robert F. Kennedy as his funeral train passes on its way from New York City to Washington, D.C., on June 8, 1968.
#2 Members of the Elizabeth Firing Squad stand at attention among residents at the train station in Elizabeth, New Jersey, as the funeral train passes on June 8, 1968.
#3 Elizabeth, New Jersey, June 8, 1968
#4 Mourners line the tracks to bid farewell to Robert F. Kennedy, June 8, 1968.
#5 Mourners paying respect to Robert F. Kennedy, June 8, 1968.
#6 The funeral train rolls through Princeton Junction, New Jersey, on June 8, 1968. Several people hold portraits of Robert F. Kennedy, including a man whose poster reads Seek a Newer World.
#7 People standing above the train, June 8, 1968.
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#9 Bristol, Pennsylvania, June 8, 1968.
#10 Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, June 8, 1968
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#13 People fill North Philadelphia station as the train passes on June 8, 1968.
#14 North Philadelphia station on June 8, 1968
#15 North Philadelphia station on June 8, 1968
#16 A sign is held up as the funeral train passes through Charlestown, Maryland, on June 8, 1968
#17 Baltimore, Maryland, on June 8, 1968
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To whomever posted this photo: I would like Baltimore radio news broadcaster and I would love to share it via my upcoming memoir about growing up in the 50’s and 50’s in Baltimore. I am a retired watched the train come thru with my sisters that day but we did not have a camera. Do you own the copyrights to this photo? I would appreciate a response. and I would give credit to the photographer in my book. Thanks.
