For years after meeting Robert Kennedy, Rafer Johnson was on call to him, traveling with him, visiting him and his family, joining his mission to change the politics of the nation. And then, just five weeks before the first Special Olympics, Rafer was with Bobby Kennedy when he lost his life in Los Angeles. Along with NFL great Roosevelt Grier, Johnson held on to the gun that killed my uncle until the police came to take it.
The experience devastated him. “I got lost. I went home and built a seven-foot-high wall around my house. I didn’t come out. I couldn’t come out. I didn’t have anything to live for.”
But he did answer the phone one day to hear an invitation…”Would you come to Chicago?” my mother asked. Amazingly, despite the horrific situation surrounding her brother’s death, she had decided to proceed with the games.
What Rafer saw at those first Games caught his attention—and changed everything.
“Everywhere you turned, you saw an experience no one had ever seen before. No one had seen these people. No one had ever seen their exhilaration. It was so simple, but it was so amazing.”
In his words, “I looked at the athletes, and I knew what it was like for them. I knew how it felt when someone slapped me on the back for the first time. The athletes had these smiles that I will never be able to describe. And when I went to congratulate them, I got a bear hug instead of a handshake.”
“Something came from inside me. I just wanted to say over and over again: thank you.”