NEW YORK — Today, our founder and hero, the cornerstone of our organization, left this world after a tremendously impactful life.
Born Ethel Skakel, she had little idea what life had in store for her when she met the brother of a classmate during a 1945 ski trip.
But she and Robert proved a perfect pairing, together weathering some of life’s most arduous storms with both grace and grit during nearly 18 years of marriage until his death in 1968.
Few would have blamed her for giving up then. Yet, she steadfastly raised 11 children alone, instilling in them all a firm sense of faith, empathy, ebullience and above all, courage.
In her words, “For anyone to achieve something, he must show a little courage. You’re only on this earth once. You must give it all you’ve got.”
She certainly did that.
After founding Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights months after her husband’s death in 1968, she became a political force in her own right, personally tackling human rights issues both at home and abroad.
She marched with Cesar Chavez, sat with Native Americans at Alcatraz, boycotted fast food businesses with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, demonstrated outside the South African and Chinese embassies, pulled tires out of the Anacostia River, trekked up mountainous terrain in Mexico to visit unjustly convicted prisoners, crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge with civil rights leader John Lewis, confronted dictator Daniel arap Moi in Nairobi and raised millions of dollars for human rights work around the globe, to name just a few.
A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Robert F. Kennedy medal, she meant more to us than we can ever express.
We share our sincere condolences with her entire family, including our president and leader, Kerry Kennedy. Rest in eternal peace, Mrs. Kennedy.