Ethel Kennedy, Widow of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Human Rights Advocate, Dies at 96
Ethel Kennedy, Widow of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Human Rights Advocate, Dies at 96

Article by Bill Pan, Special Note by Robert F. Kennedy Jr and the USNN World News Team

Ethel Kennedy, widow of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and human rights advocate, died on Oct. 10 at the age of 96.

The Kennedy family matriarch had been hospitalized after suffering a stroke in her sleep last week.

“It is with our hearts full of love that we announce the passing of our amazing grandmother,” former Massachusetts Congressman Joe Kennedy III posted on social media platform X, describing her as a devout Catholic and a daily communicant. “She died this morning from complications related to a stroke suffered last week.”

Her family said she was one of the last remaining members of a generation that included President John F. Kennedy. In the final days of her life, she enjoyed the company of many relatives.

“She has had a great summer and transition into fall,” reads a family statement issued after she was hospitalized. “Every day, she enjoyed time with her children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She was able to get out on the water, visit the pier, and enjoy many lunches and dinners with family. It has been a gift to all of us and to her as well.”

Ethel Kennedy was born on April 11, 1928, in Chicago. Her father, George Skakel, was a self-made millionaire in the coal industry. She was just 17 years old when she met her future husband during a ski trip.

A towering figure of the Kennedy dynasty, Ethel Kennedy bore witness to many family tragedies. Her parents died in a plane crash in 1955, followed by her brother in a separate crash in 1966.

On June 5, 1968, she was by her husband’s side when he was fatally shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles shortly after delivering a speech celebrating his victory in the California presidential primary. Less than five years earlier, her brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, had been assassinated in Dallas.

She would endure even more heartbreaks over the years, including the deaths of two of her 11 children—David, who died of a drug overdose in 1984, and Michael, killed in a skiing accident in 1997. In 1999, her nephew, John F. Kennedy Jr., and his wife, Carolyn, died in a plane crash en route to the wedding of her youngest daughter, Rory.

Despite the personal loss, Ethel Kennedy remained a driving force behind the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Foundation, an organization she founded in 1968 in the months between her husband’s death and the birth of their youngest child. The organization honors her husband’s legacy and promotes human rights and social justice causes across the world.

“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,” the Foundation said in a statement commemorating her life.

“A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Robert F. Kennedy medal, she meant more to us than we can ever express.”

In a similar vein, President Joe Biden released a statement highlighting Ethel Kennedy’s legacy as a social activist.

“For over 50 years, Ethel traveled, marched, boycotted, and stood up for human rights around the world with her signature iron will and grace,” Biden said.

“Through it all, Ethel’s story was the American story.”

Ethel Kennedy is survived by nine children and a large extended family of 34 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren, along with numerous nieces and nephews. Her son Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently suspended his 2024 presidential campaign to endorse former President Donald Trump.

A special note from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,

Thank you for the outpouring of support in response to my mother’s passing. I wanted to share with you the tribute I wrote and posted on social media yesterday.

My mom, Ethel Skakel Kennedy, passed peacefully into Heaven this morning. She was 96. She died in Boston surrounded by many of her nine surviving children and her friends. God gave her 34 grandchildren, 24 great-grandchildren, and the energy to give them all the attention they required. He blessed her with a rich and eventful life. Even as she declined in recent months, she never lost her sense of fun, her humor, her spark, her spunk, and her joie de vivre. She wrung joy from every moment, but for 56 years she has spoken with yearning of the day she would reunite with her beloved husband. She is with him now, with my brothers David and Michael, with her parents, her six siblings, all of whom predeceased her, and her “adopted” Kennedy siblings Jack, Kick, Joe, Teddy, Eunice, Jean, Rosemary, and Patricia. From the day she met my father, her new family observed that she was “more Kennedy than the Kennedys.” She was never more enthusiastic about the afterlife than when she considered that she would also be reunited with her many dogs, including 16 Irish setters — all conveniently named “Rusty.”
 
The cognitive dissonance that allowed her to keep two inconsistent truths in her heart at the same time without budging made my mother a collection of irreconcilable convictions. Among these was her ironic combination of deep — nearly blind — reverence for the Catholic Church and irreverence toward its clerics. She was at once starstruck by America’s presidents, all of whom she came to know personally, and at the same time skeptical of government and toward all figures of authority. She balanced her contempt for pretension and hypocrisy with a boundless tolerance for error and mistakes in others.
 
God also endowed her with a perpetual attitude of gratitude that fueled her taste for adventure and an irrepressible buoyancy in a life beset by a continuous parade of heartbreaking tragedies. Her sunny optimism eventually brought my shattered father back to life following the assassination of his brother and then helped her children to thrive after her husband’s assassination five years later.
 
Among her most defining qualities were moral and physical fearlessness. She was a peerless equestrian and held the high jump record on horseback, jumping 7′9″ on a Quarter Horse. Critics named her among the best female amateur tennis players, and she was a competitive diver. But she did every sport well — from football to skiing, waterskiing and kayaking. Her disciplined stoicism and her deep faith in God enabled her to endure over ten years of pregnancy without complaint. She also suffered the murders of her husband and Uncle Jack, and the early deaths of two of her children. Various air crashes killed both of her parents, her brother, her sister-in-law, and her nephew John. She never enjoyed flying, but her worry never stopped her from boarding a plane. While giving short shrift to her own monumental suffering, she always showed intense compassion for others.
 
My mother invented tough love, and she could be hard on her children when we didn’t live up to her expectations. But she was also intensely loyal, and we always knew that she would stand fiercely behind us when we came under attack by others. She was our role model for self-discipline, for resilience, and for self-confidence. She deeded to each of her 11 children her love of good stories, her athleticism, her competitive spirit, and the deep curiosity about the world, and the intense interest in people of all backgrounds, which caused her to pepper everyone she met — from cab drivers to presidents — with a relentless cascade of questions about their lives. She also gave us all her love of language and for good storytelling. I credit her for all my virtues. I’m grateful for her generosity in overlooking my faults.

Dear Mr. Kennedy,

On behalf of USNN World News, I extend our deepest condolences on the passing of your beloved mother, Ethel Skakel Kennedy. She was a remarkable woman whose enduring strength, compassion, and devotion to family have left a legacy that will forever inspire those who knew her story. Her vibrant life and her relentless courage in the face of adversity are a testament to her unwavering spirit.

In reading your tribute, it’s clear that she was a guiding light for your family, and her pride in all of her children must have been immense. We believe that she would be especially proud of the path you have taken — standing strong in your convictions, advocating for truth, and carrying forward the values that shaped her life. May her strength and love continue to guide you, and may her legacy live on through your important work.

On behalf of our family and the entire USNN World News organization our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family during this difficult time.

Sincerely,

Stephen Zogopoulos
CEO, USNN World News


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