I believe it was Robert F. Kennedy who once said, “It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.”

He was speaking to a group of students at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. The year was 1966 – a year marked by the stench of injustice, and representing perhaps the very worst of the apartheid movement.

Kennedy had been invited by the National Union of South African Students (NAUSAS) to give the annual Day of Affirmation address at the university. He immediately accepted, embarking on a 5-day trip that would include this historic speech.

His words gave hope to the opponents of apartheid – hope that they might one day stand victorious against those who brandished fear as their weapon.

For those who are perhaps too young to remember, apartheid was the means by which the National Party enforced a system of racial segregation. Most notably, the forced ‘resettlement’ of millions of non-whites to their ‘designated areas.’

And that was just the beginning.

Through a series of legislation known as ‘petty apartheid’, the rights of non-whites were systematically eroded. It was, perhaps, one of the most volatile periods in South African history; one that went largely unnoticed by the rest of the world.

Until this momentous speech, that is.

“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice,” Kennedy remarked, “he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

Kennedy’s visit may have offered Americans their first glimpse into what it was like to live in the ‘land of the banned.’

“Few of us will have the greatness to bend history itself,” he offered. “but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.”

I don’t know why I am compelled to share this history with you today.

Perhaps, to reinforce this ‘power of one’ and the ability of Hope to change this world.

My darlings, we are not so very small, after all.

May action serve as our measure of our success.

In peace, love…and equanimity,