ABSTRACT
The racial system of apartheid was buried in the 1990s and Nelson Mandela was elected South Africa's black president. Robert Francis Kennedy had predicted in 1968 that a black American would probably become president of the United States within 40 years—and his prediction was realized with the 2008 election of Barack Obama. These are just two examples of an updating of the Robert Francis Kennedy legacy that is not counterfactual at all, but rather a stunning testimony to Robert Kennedy's visionary idealism in the face of great historical obstacles. Robert Kennedy's tenure in the John Fitzgerald Kennedy administration as Attorney General, head of the United States Department of Justice, had placed him in the role of chief law enforcement of the United States. His primary responsibilities involved following the dictates of the courts in the enforcement of civil and political rights.
