Editor's Note: Following are excerpts from a telephone interview in July with Peter Edelman, a former legislative assistant to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. Edelman, who has written extensively on poverty, constitutional law and children, and is the author of Searching for America's Heart: RFK and the Renewal of Hope. He teaches constitutional and poverty law at Georgetown University Law Center.

New York Teacher: As a top aide to Robert Kennedy when he was elected U.S. senator from New York, you had the privilege of accompanying him on so many memorable visits with the poor and disenfranchised. Tell us about the time you went to Watts, shortly after the rioting in 1965.

Edelman: He had given a speech in Los Angeles and was headed out the next day or maybe even that night, so he had some time in the afternoon. He always learned by going and seeing things, talking to people and listening, and so he said, "Why don't we go to Watts?" We asked the taxi driver to take us there and RFK simply said, "Let's go for a walk." We walked around the neighborhood and the thing I remember is he just talked to a number of people, asking them various kinds of questions. Most of them recognized him, some didn't; or if they did, they didn't let on that they did or they couldn't believe that Robert Kennedy would be walking around by himself with some other guy. I remember he said to one fellow, a man probably around 50, "What do you think the problem is?" And the man looked at him and said, "It's the flustration, man." That really stuck with me.

NYT: It sounds like he could talk to anybody.

Edelman: If he saw people on the street, he would say hello and engage them in conversation. He'd ask very friendly, simple questions. And they would just talk.

NYT: You also accompanied him on his first meeting with Cesar Chavez at a Senate subcommittee meeting. You've called that meeting "riveting." Can you share some of your memories of that?

Edelman: Kennedy was a member of the Senate Migratory Labor Subcommittee. And Cesar Chavez was just getting started with his organizing at the time and was getting a tiny bit of attention in places like the New Republic magazine. One of the aides to Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers called and asked me whether Kennedy would consider going with Senators Harrison and Williams (New Jersey Sen. Pete Williams was the chair of the subcommittee). Having RFK go along would mean there would be a likelihood of national television coverage. So I went into Kennedy's office. The door was open and you just walked in. I asked if he wanted to go meet Cesar Chavez for these hearings and he just said fine. I always had the experience with him on things like that where I would always think "Don't you want to know more?" But he had this kind of instinct for a lot of things and he understood who Cesar Chavez was and he understood what the hearings were about, which was the great strike.

NYT: So what happened?

Edelman: When he walked in the proceedings, the hearings were already under way. It was late in the morning and the witness was the sheriff of the county, who had been having his deputies arrest farm workers who were picketing peacefully and not trespassing on anybody's land. So he said to the sheriff, "Now let me get this straight you are arresting these people, is that right?" "Yes." "Have they done anything illegal?" "No." "They are on public property - isn't that right, so they're not trespassing?" "That's correct." "Well why are you arresting them?" "Well I am arresting them to protect them from somebody attacking them." This by the way is all on film and in many documentaries. He says to the sheriff, "Well it's about lunchtime, sheriff, and I suggest while you're at lunch, you read the Constitution of the United States."

NYT: What happened next?

Edelman: We walked out of the hearing and Chavez came up to him or was brought up to him. In any case, they were standing in a parking lot. They shook hands and they started this conversation immediately. I don't know what they were saying, but they were clearly, deeply focused. This was a very intense immersion in quickly getting to know each other and somehow, instinctively, getting to know each other really very well, very quickly. Around them a ring of people assembled, two deep, three deep, four deep, even five deep, and the two of them spoke so quietly that maybe even the people in the first ring couldn't hear what they were saying to each other. But what was riveting was to watch that all unfold.

NYT: So there was an immediate connection?

Edelman: Yes, there was an immediate bond and they were literally friends for life. After that, Senator Kennedy became their person in Washington, so whenever they needed anything, when they were having a problem with the Labor Department or whenever the federal government wasn't responding to something they wanted or was doing something they disliked, we were their senator.

NYT: Another pivotal trip would have been in 1967 when you visited the Mississippi Delta and met your future wife (Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund) Tell us about that.

Edelman: It was the year Congress kept the War on Poverty, the Economic Opportunity Act, on a very short string and only gave it reauthorization to continue on a year-to-year or maybe a two-year basis. Not just the funding but the whole authority for the law had to be reauthorized. Sen. Joseph Clark of Pennsylvania, who was the chair of the Employment, Manpower and Poverty subcommittee, decided that it would be helpful to hold field hearings around the country and try to get television and print media coverage to let the country know the good things that were being done under this program. One of the places the subcommittee wanted to go was Mississippi, where there was huge controversy about the Head Start program.

This was a multi-county, very large Head Start Program the law allowed the federal Office of Economic Opportunity to fund directly. If the public officials in the state didn't want the program, the federal government could just go around them. In this case they created the Child Development Group of Mississippi. At one point it was the largest employer in the state of Mississippi. It was not popular with the powers-that-be and the state; many of the employees were civil rights advocates. The governor and the two senators in the state were trying to make allegations that money was being misspent and create whatever political controversy they could about it. And the idea was that if the Senate subcommittee would go down there and give the organization a platform to describe what it was doing - which was essentially helping small children get a better preparation so that they could do better in school and in life - that would be helpful. It was at that point in time I met my future wife. She was fairly well known already, but I had barely heard about her. She was the head of the Mississippi office for NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the first black woman admitted into the Mississippi bar. She largely testified about the widespread hunger in Mississippi, verging on starvation -- really causing severe malnutrition, which was occurring because the people in power were trying to push as many African-Americans out of Mississippi as they could to strengthen or shore up the position of whites in politics - to be able to hold on to the political control. So they were pushing the workers off the plantations, which was leading to families being totally destitute. You could get welfare, which was only $55 a month for a family of three, but you couldn't get that if you had a family that had both a father and a mother. By then some of the counties had switched to food stamps as they had the option of doing in 1964 as a demonstration program. It was difficult to get them because it was unpredictable when the office would be open and they charged money for the food stamps.

• Edelman describes the 1967 trip to the Mississippi Delta to learn about children in poverty
  

NYT: They charged for food stamps?

Edelman: Yes, this was fixed some years later but if you had no income you had to pay $2 a person for your food stamps. To show how this was hurting people, we went on this field trip and met people who were suffering horribly, where the children had bloated bellies and something you couldn't believe could exist in the United States. They had sores on their legs that wouldn't heal and so forth. Originally you were eligible for more food stamps as you got more income. In other words the theory was the poorer you are, the less hungry you are.

NYT: And you had the media with you?

Edelman: Yes, it became a national story. These children were on CBS news that night and it had a powerful effect in the country. Kennedy was very deeply moved by what he had seen and went home shaken. He told his own children the story -- his older ones remember it vividly. "We just have to help them," he said. "You have to help them." You know there is a tradition in their family of public service, of helping other people and it's mostly assumed that he was so moved this trip that he told them that they specifically had an obligation to help stop this, help end this hunger in the United States.

NYT: So what did he do?

Edelman: He himself went the next day to see the U.S. secretary of agriculture, Orville Freeman, and of course it was just the beginning of what turned out to be a long political effort and advocacy that resulted in the food stamp program becoming a national program. He told the secretary, "You have to get some food down there." I mean I remember that quite vividly. That's an exact quote. "At the very least you need to stop this business of charging people who have no income money for the food stamps."

Freeman said, "Well, Bob, what difference does it make? You know there isn't anybody in the United States of America who has no income." And Kennedy said, "Yes, there are -- I met them." He said "Look Orville, you send anybody you want down there, with Peter here and he'll retrace the steps and if they're convinced that there actually are people who have no income, will you change that?" He agreed, so I went back down there and Marian and I showed them these people and Freeman changed the policy.

Then, as he always did, Kennedy got very deeply into the question, and you could tell his staff was working very hard on these questions of hunger. That's why I went to eastern Kentucky in February of 1968; we had done some research and discovered there was a great deal of severe hunger and malnutrition there, too, because of the closing of the coal mines.

• Edelman discusses Robert Kennedy's efforts to change policy in Washington to help children in poverty
  

NYT: That's a great example of RFK moving beyond just rhetoric or a photo op.

Edelman: Right. He never dropped some cause or some issue that he was already working on; he just kept adding them. When he was focused on an issue, we strategized about it regularly. We had a hearing where a bunch of physicians had been sent down to Mississippi by the Field Foundation and they examined hundreds - maybe thousands - of children and found severe malnutrition, pernicious anemia and diseases like ricket.

He and Senator Clark invited Senators Stennis and Eastland from Mississippi to come to a hearing to learn the findings of this group of physicians. The senators came and they listened to the whole thing. And then Stennis proposed $10 million as appropriation to help which, of course, is peanuts. I remember a conversation with RFK the day we got the news and I said "Can you believe that he has the gall to just propose $10 million for the country when he knows how serious the need?" And RFK said, "We'll take it. It's a start." Then he got a friend of his who was a CBS news producer to do a documentary on hunger in America, which was a classic documentary. He was constantly thinking of ways he could make a difference. Never stopped.

NYT: Forty years later our country is still struggling with poverty. What do you think he'd say the country needs to do to beat the cycle of poverty?

Edelman: He always said that the central part of the solution was work for everybody who could work. And of course then you know logically you have to have the education and training that applies behind the ability to do the best job that you're capable of.

NYT: And he would be focusing on schools?

Edelman: He always was deeply involved in the question of better education for low-income children. That's really what it is today, too, except it's so much more clearly now a more complicated result of not only too much continuing racial discrimination but children having had no choice of where they're going to school and going to these perfectly horrible schools. That's much more clearly a challenge today, partly because so many more jobs today demand more education. Anyway, he would be emphasizing jobs, good jobs. He would be talking about what do we need to do to get good jobs for everybody and having a decent safety net. Along with that, he'd be talking about health care, child care, investing in children and this whole question of building communities. The other thing he would have talked about even more now: He would have said to people, "You have to take responsibility for yourself; We need to help you, we need to provide opportunity, but only you can walk through the door and take advantage of that opportunity."

NYT: If you were speaking to a classroom of students who have had no exposure to the era at all, how would you describe Robert Kennedy?

Edelman: I would say he was someone who cared passionately about people having a fair chance. I really can't tell you where that came from. Here was this man who came from a very wealthy family. But his whole life history reflects the fact that he was most interested in the question of people who are excluded, people who are left on the outside, people who have no power, whether it was in South Africa, or whether it was the coal miners that he visited in Chile or in the United States. He was absolutely passionate about that. He also cared a lot about the huge amount of nuclear proliferation; we needed to take steps so that we didn't blow up the whole world. Of course as the war in Vietnam went along he came to realize what a terrible mistake it was.

But as I worked for him, the whole time that I knew him, the most important thing to him was about everybody being included in the life of this great and wealthy country - especially children. He loved children. So often when he was out campaigning he would get into a conversation with a child. Sometimes he'd invite the child to come ride in the car so that they could continue their conversation.

He was a man who just cared about everybody. He was passionately committed to doing things - "making a difference." And he always talked about how each person can make a difference.

That was the famous "Ripple of Hope" speech, which was of course was one of the great statements that he ever made about how everyone can make a difference … and when they do something that needs to be done in a society, the ripples add up to a mighty stream.

• Edelman on Kennedy: "He was someone who cared passionately about people having a fair chance."
  

NYT: What about his personality?

Edelman: He had a great sense of humor, mostly at his own expense. He made fun of himself so you didn't feel like you were around somebody who needed special treatment because he was some kind of celebrity. He walked into a house in Mississippi and was told that the African-American man's name was Andrew Jackson. He thought that was rather amusing. He said to the man, "So you're Andrew Jackson?" And the man said to him, "So you're Bobby Kennedy?" And they both just laughed.

NYT: Today, many people are comparing Bobby Kennedy and Barack Obama. Do you share that view?

Edelman: In part, I think they're both very deeply committed to making this a better world. They both have a special appeal - especially to young people - and the ability to draw a crowd of people who perhaps have been skeptical about the political process - crowds like 75,000 people in Portland, Ore. The only political person prior to Barack Obama in my lifetime who could draw a crowd that way was Kennedy.

NYT: What about differences?

Barack Obama is very cool; his public presentation is deliberately calm. He can certainly get across the fact that he means what he says and that he feels very strongly about it. But the basic way he comes across on television - and in person, for that matter - is cool. Robert Kennedy was certainly cool in the way that young people use the word, but as a campaigner he was hot.

NYT: That's an interesting comparison. What do you mean 'hot'?

Edelman: Bobby Kennedy was passionate; his passion came across in his speeches, especially as he was running for president. When he was running for Senate in 1964 it was the first time out by himself as a public figure and he had to learn his way into it. He wasn't that good at it when he began, and he was naturally a kind of shy person. He was much better talking to children than he was to adults.

NYT: You've had conversations with Obama. Do you feel he shares the same kind of passionate spirit?

Edelman: I do very strongly. I know in Ethel's case she really felt the connection. She felt it's not some kind of rubber stamp sameness, but just that there was the same genuineness and commitment and determination to make a difference.

NYT: How do you think RFK would handle today's issue with immigration?"

Edelman: I think one thing he would say is that there is a hypocrisy: We say on the one hand it's illegal for you to come, it's illegal for you to be here and on the other hand we look the other way when employers are complicit in hiring people who are here illegally because, of course, they can exploit them.

I think he would be working harder than we work to help the Mexicans and others raise their own labor standards so that there's less of a temptation to come.

I think he would be trying harder to find a way that doesn't reward the fact that they're here illegally but that does somehow create an appropriate path to being able to be here permanently if they meet certain conditions.

Ultimately, I think he would be trying to figure out how you deal with this in a way that is humane but nonetheless upholds the law.

NYT: One idea our teachers came up with as they were writing the curriculum is to use bullying lessons as kind of a launch pad to weave in RFK's vision. What do you think about that?

Edelman: Okay, but not big enough. I think the point is about non-violence; it's so much bigger. I think that the larger question is one of violence generally; you know there is too much violence, and society is modeled for children in so many ways on television and in film and in a world where there is too much killing. It's not to say that I think that every conflict that exists in the world can be resolved in Gandhi's way or Dr. King's way. But I think the large principle is nonviolence in our dealings with one another between people of all ages and sizes and genders. It includes homophobia and all of the other hostility and hurt that's directed at all LGBT people. And domestic violence. I just can't believe how we keep producing generation after generation of these men who think it's okay to hurt a woman.

NYT: Are there any other ideas you would build into the school curriculum to further the vision of RFK?

Edelman: I think that whatever we can do to teach respect is emblematic of what Robert Kennedy was about. That's connected to the nonviolence, but it's about respect for other people and especially for anybody that's different in any way. As non-violence is the non-engagement in a bad act, respect is engaging in a good act. Though harder politically, another important subject is talking about the massive inequalities in society. I saw a figure that said it would take a worker who earns $10 an hour something like 10,000 years to earn as much as one of the 10 richest people in the country earns in a year. The gap between the top and the bottom has widened exponentially over the last 35 years. So if I was a high school civics teacher, I'd say, "Guess what? It isn't just your family that's got the problem." I don't know how much trouble I would get into, but it's a fact.

NYT: One final question: If you could play one video clip for a class, a single quote that would capture the spirit of RFK, what would you choose?

Edelman: An obvious choice would be the "Ripple of Hope" speech in South Africa. Another would be the speech he gave at the news of Dr. King's death on April 4, 1968. Even though it's sad, it evokes the time and, as a teachable moment, it brings in Dr. King and opens up volumes of material for discussion. It's widely known, but too many children growing up today haven't been exposed to it. At the JFK library they show a number of powerful, pretty amazing clips in "Robert Kennedy Remembered."

I'd also suggest one more that's more generic but perhaps even more powerful: a film of him talking to a child. What speaks to a child in school might not be Robert Kennedy delivering a speech somewhere. It might be him having a conversation with a child.