Sail on Silver Girl,
Sail on by.
— Paul Simon
On this day in 1968, I stood on the mobbed platform of my local Penn Central station to watch "Silver Girl" take Robert F. Kennedy's body to Washington for burial.
My 15-year-old self came to think of RFK's funeral train by that name 18 months later, when Simon and Garfunkel laid the soundtrack of a brand-new song over film footage of it.
We're now all-too familiar with that mournful song.
Sail on Silver Girl,
Sail on by.
Your time has come to shine,
All your dreams are on their way.
See how they shine.
Although the song became a smash hit, Simon and Garfunkel's televised sermon didn't suit most Americans' tastes in late 1969. A million viewers switched off the duo's TV special after seeing the train.
Camelot was out. Nixon was in.
A true humanitarian had been slain. Not a poser, but a rich, once-ruthless Cold Warrior who'd been reborn a hippie; a peacenik, labor leader, friend of the middle class, and civil rights spokesperson—and the only man in America who could fill the shoes of the just-murdered Martin Luther King.
Shot by a Palestinian who opposed his stance on Israel, RFK had died on June 6, at the age of 42. The Kennedy family immediately arranged his funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York on June 8, and his burial the same day at Arlington National Cemetery.
"RFK was the only white politician in America who could walk through the streets of both white and Black working-class neighborhoods and be embraced by both," Gillon writes.
The family then enlisted the Penn Central to shuttle the body and 700 family friends between the two cities. The railroad cobbled together a train composed of two locomotives and 21 passenger cars. RFK's casket rested in the last one, on top of red velvet chairs.
The idea of using a funeral train seemed right, "because his people live along the tracks,” John Kenneth Galbraith said at the time.
But none of the family or friends expected what would happen.
"As they emerged from the tunnel under the Hudson River into the bright sunshine of northern New Jersey, the passengers got their first glimpse of the enormous crowds gathered to view the train," Gillon writes.
"In the marshlands of northern Jersey, hardened workers stood atop trucks with their hands placed over their hearts. One man knelt in prayer by the trackside. In New Brunswick, a lone bugler stood on the station platform sounding taps. In rural areas, girls flocked to the railroad on horseback, and boys looked down from trees. Outside Philadelphia, a junior high school band played 'America the Beautiful.' At the Philadelphia train station, onlookers linked arms and sang the Civil War anthem 'Battle Hymn of the Republic,' one of RFK’s favorite songs.
"Gazing out the window, journalist Jack Newfield witnessed 'tens of thousands of poor Blacks, already bereft from the loss of Martin Luther King, weeping and waving goodbye on one side of the railroad tracks.' And alongside those Black mourners were 'tens of thousands of almost poor whites on the other side of the train, waving American flags, standing at attention, hands over their hearts, tears running down their faces.'
"'Inside the train, you couldn’t hear anything,' said journalist Art Buchwald. 'But on the platform, you could hear the cheers, and the people crying.'”
Oh, if you need a friend,
I’m sailing right behind.
The trip lasted for eight hours—twice as long as it should have—because more than a million people had massed along the tracks to say goodbye. Journalist Russell Baker noted that "not a single face in the crowd smiled.” It was a million-man catharsis.
Like a bridge over troubled water,
I will ease your mind.
Like a bridge over troubled water,
I will ease your mind.
"Dave Powers, who had been part of the Kennedy Irish mafia dating back to JFK’s first campaign for Congress in 1946, did not want the train ride to end," historian Gillon writes.
"'I wish this thing could go through every state, just keep going.'"
Sail on, Silver Girl.
POSTSCRIPT: Find an album of contemporary photos here.
