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The speech that John F. Kennedy gave on April 4, 1968 in Indianapolis, was regarding the topic of the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination. Kennedy was boarding the plane to go to Indianapolis when he learned that Dr. King had been shot. He was coming there for a rally regarding his decision to run for President of the United States. He had a full speech prepared for the audience. When he arrived in Indianapolis he was told that King had indeed been killed. Kennedy was advised by the chief of police to cancel his speech because they predicted violence among the people because of King’s death. But Kennedy decided to go on anyway. The words that he had prepared were of no use, he didn’t know what to say. The crowd of mostly blacks were still very happy; no one had told them that Dr. King had been killed. I guess what Kennedy had to say really was of no use because riots broke out in 167 cities and 46 people were killed, not to mention the homes and stores that were burned, 55,000 armed troops were brought in. This speech was very important because he was the first to speak to them about King being killed. No one had informed them about it, and he had to be the one to calm them down. Kennedy had to let them know that it is ok