The murder of Charlie Kirk–gunned down while speaking at Utah Valley University–is another brutal reminder of how political beliefs can metastasize into hatred.

On the night of April 4, 1968, after learning that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated, Robert F. Kennedy stood on the back of a flatbed truck before a largely African American crowd in Indianapolis and spoke the plain truth: Dr. King  had been murdered. He asked them to reject hatred and revenge and reach instead for understanding and compassion. Drawing on the murder of his own brother, he acknowledged the pain that follows violence and the temptation to answer pain with more violence.

“In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States,” Kennedy said,  “it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in?”

In that moment, what Kennedy modeled wasn’t politics; it was leadership.

Leadership is a choice, and—in the middle of a presidential campaign—Kennedy chose restraint over rage, and empathy over exploitation. He reminded the crowd—and the country—that character is proven when grief tests our highest ideals. The ethical imperative was clear: do not let anger overcome conscience.

I was 20 years old when I watched Kennedy’s passion and purpose end with an assassin’s gun shortly after a victory rally in Los Angeles. I remember it today as I learned that Charlie Kirk was gunned down by hatred.

Today, the country is facing another difficult time, and Kennedy’s words echo more loudly than ever:

“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another.”