CNN –
Ethel Kennedy, the widow of former U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy and a longtime human rights activist, died Thursday, her family said. She was 96 years old.
Former Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III announced the news of his grandmother’s death on X. Ethel Kennedy was hospitalized after suffering a stroke last week.
“Along with a lifelong work in social justice and human rights, our mother leaves behind nine children, 34 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren, along with numerous nieces and nephews, all of whom love her dearly,” the former congressman wrote in a letter. mail. She was a devout Catholic and daily communicant, and we take comfort in knowing that she was reunited with the love of her life, our father, Robert Kennedy; Her children David and Michael. her daughter-in-law Maryam; her grandchildren, Maeve and Saoirse; and her grandchildren, Gideon and Josie.
Kennedy married into one of the most influential political families in the United States, and supported her husband through his successful Senate campaign and then during his 1968 presidential campaign, which ended with his assassination months into the campaign.
Her husband was tragically shot to death in a Los Angeles hotel after winning the California Democratic primary. The attack, which came five years after Robert Kennedy’s brother, former President John Kennedy, was shot to death, wounded five others and shook a nation already shaken by several assassinations. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. had been murdered nearly two months earlier. Photographs following the shooting show Ethel Kennedy leaning over her husband with her hands on his chest as he bleeding on the ground. She was three months pregnant with her youngest daughter, Rory, at the time.
In the decades following her husband’s death, Ethel Kennedy emerged as an environmental and human rights activist in her own right, founding the non-profit Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Foundation to champion the causes her late husband had championed.
Her activism has taken her across the country and around the world, from marching with Cesar Chavez in support of the farm workers’ movement to confronting Kenyan dictator Daniel arap Moi with her daughter Kerry at her side in 1989. She has received the country’s highest civilian honor. Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2014. Her activism continued into the final decades of her life. In 2018, Kennedy joined a hunger strike to protest the then-Trump administration’s separation of families at the US-Mexico border.
“Generations of Americans have not toiled or sacrificed to build a country where children and their parents are put in cages to advance a cynical political agenda,” she said in a statement at the time.
More recently, Ethel Kennedy’s family was caught up in a political struggle, when her second eldest son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., ran for president in 2024, first as a Democrat and later as an independent. Members of the powerful Democratic family shunned his campaign as “dangerous” and indicated their frustration and sadness. RFK Jr. suspended his campaign in August and endorsed former President Donald Trump.
Ethel Kennedy was born into a large family in Chicago in 1928 and grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut. She met Robert F. Kennedy in 1945 through his sister Jane Kennedy on a ski trip. The couple married in 1950 and had 11 children.
Ethel Kennedy’s life, like that of many members of her family, was marked by a series of tragedies. Her father, George Skakel, a wealthy coal magnate, and her mother, Anne Skakel, were killed in a plane accident in 1955. Her brother died in a plane crash in 1966. Her son, David, died in 1984 of an accidental drug overdose, and another died. Her son, Michael, died in a skiing accident in 1997. Her granddaughter, Saoirse Kennedy Hill, died of an accidental overdose in 2019, and another granddaughter, Maeve Kennedy Townsend McCain, drowned with her 8-year-old son in a boating accident in 2020.
In a statement, President Joe Biden called Kennedy “an American icon — a mother of optimism and moral courage, and a symbol of resilience and service.” She was dedicated to her family and her country, and had a spine of steel and a heart of gold that inspired millions of Americans, including Jill and me. We were honored to call her a dear friend.”
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the second eldest son of Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy. It has also been updated with additional information and feedback.
CNN’s Paul LeBlanc and Tom Foreman contributed to this report.
