CNN —
Ethel Kennedy, the widow of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and a longtime human rights activist, died Thursday, her family announced. She was 96 years old.
Former Massachusetts Congressman Joe Kennedy III announced the death of Grandmother X. Ethel Kennedy was hospitalized last week after suffering a stroke.
“Our mother, who spent a lifetime working on social justice and human rights, leaves behind nine children, 34 grandchildren, 24 great-grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews, all of whom are… I love her dearly,” the former congressman wrote. post. “She was a devout Catholic and we communicated on a daily basis. And we know that she has been reunited with the love of her life, our father Robert F. Kennedy. Her children David and Michael. Her grandchildren Maeve and Saoirse. And her great grandchildren Gideon and Josie.
Married to one of the most influential politicians in the United States, Kennedy supported her husband through his successful Senate campaign and later in his 1968 presidential campaign, but only a few months into the campaign. It ended with the president being assassinated.
Her husband was tragically shot and killed in a Los Angeles hotel shortly after winning the California Democratic primary. The attack came five years after Robert F. Kennedy’s brother, former President John F. Kennedy, was shot to death, wounding five people and rattling a country already reeling from multiple assassinations. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. had been murdered about two months earlier. A photograph taken immediately after the shooting shows Ethel Kennedy leaning on her husband’s chest as he lay bleeding on the floor. At the time, she was three months pregnant with her youngest daughter, Rory.
In the decades after her husband’s death, Ethel Kennedy emerged as an environmental and human rights activist in her own right, founding the nonprofit organization Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, which championed the causes promoted by her late husband.
Her activism has taken her across the country, from marching with Cesar Chavez in support of the farm worker movement, to confronting Kenyan dictator Daniel arap Moi in 1989 with her daughter Kelly by her side. traveled all over the world. She received the nation’s highest civilian honor. , was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2014. Her activity continued until the last decades of her life. In 2018, President Kennedy participated in a hunger strike to protest the separation of families at the U.S.-Mexico border by the then-Trump administration.
“Generations of Americans have not struggled and sacrificed to build a country where children and their parents are caged to promote cynical political policies,” he said at the time. said in a statement.
Most recently, the family was embroiled in political strife when Ethel Kennedy’s second son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., ran for president in 2024, first as a Democrat and later as an independent. Die-hard Democrats have shunned his campaign, calling it “dangerous” and expressing frustration and sadness. RFK Jr. suspended his campaign in August and endorsed former President Donald Trump.
RFK Jr. remembered his mother in a post to said.
“But she was also fiercely loyal and we always knew she was fiercely behind us when we came under fire from others,” he said. Said. His mother “instilled in each of her 11 children a love of a good story, athleticism, a competitive spirit, and a deep curiosity about the world and people of all backgrounds, which she caused everyone to pepper him,” he continued. She was asked relentless questions about the lives of everyone from taxi drivers to presidents. ”
“I believe that I owe all my virtues to her. I am grateful for her generosity in overlooking my shortcomings,” he said.
Ethel Kennedy was born in 1928 into a large Chicago family and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. She met Robert F. Kennedy through her sister Jean Kennedy during a ski trip in 1945. The couple married in 1950 and had 11 children.
Ethel Kennedy’s life, like much of her family, was marked by a series of tragedies. His father, George Skakel, a wealthy coal magnate, and his mother, Anne Skakel, died in a plane crash in 1955. Her brother died in a plane crash in 1966. One son, David, died of an accidental drug overdose in 1984, and another died in an accident. His son Michael died in a skiing accident in 1997. Granddaughter Saoirse Kennedy Hill died of an accidental overdose in 2019, and another granddaughter, Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean, drowned along with her 8-year-old son in a canoeing accident in 2020.
In a statement, President Joe Biden called Kennedy “an American icon, a matriarch of optimism and moral courage, a symbol of resilience and service.” Dedicated to her family and country, she had a spine of steel and a heart of gold and was an inspiration to millions of Americans, including myself and Jill. We were happy to call her our dear friend. ”
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy’s second son. Additional information and reactions have also been updated.
CNN’s Paul LeBlanc, Aaron Perish and Tom Foreman contributed to this report.
