The widow to former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, with whom she had 11 children, Ethel Kennedy devoted much of her life to a human rights organization she helped found in her husband’s name.
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Ethel Kennedy, a matriarch to one of the most powerful political dynasties in American history, has died at the age of 96.
Family members, including her grandson, Joseph Kennedy III, announced the news social media on Thursday morning.
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"It is with our hearts full of love that we announce the passing of our amazing grandmother, Ethel Kennedy. She died this morning from complications related to a stroke suffered last week," he said. "Along with a lifetime's 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."
It is with our hearts full of love that we announce the passing of our amazing grandmother, Ethel Kennedy. She died this morning from complications related to a stroke suffered last week. Along with a lifetime's work in social justice and human rights, our mother leaves behind…
— Joe Kennedy III (@joekennedy) October 10, 2024
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Kennedy was hospitalized after suffering a stroke last week, her family said Tuesday. She and other family members have long resided on Cape Cod, at the Kennedy Compound in the Hyannis Port area of Barnstable, Massachusetts.
The widow to former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, with whom she had 11 children, Kennedy devoted much of her life to a human rights organization she helped found in her husband's name.
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"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," son Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.
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… pic.twitter.com/X6yr1yZ5DK
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) October 10, 2024
Former President Barack Obama cited the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights when he awarded Ethel Kennedy the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014.
Ahead of the award presentation, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell asked Kennedy what inspires her to keep up her work with the center.
"When you see somebody in trouble, your natural feeling is, 'Is there something I can do?' And really, everybody can do it," she said.
Kennedy's life was marked as much by tragedy as by achievement.
Her brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1963, while her husband was serving as his attorney general.
Robert F. Kennedy was later elected to the U.S. Senate in New York before embarking on his own presidential campaign. While seeking the Democratic nomination, he was also killed by an assassin's bullet in June of 1968.
The couple's youngest daughter, Rory Kennedy, was born after her father's death.
Ethel Kennedy lost one son, David, to a drug overdose in 1985. Twelve years later, another son, Michael, died in a skiing accident. In 1999, nephew John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, were killed in a plane crash off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. Granddaughter Saoirse Kennedy Hill died in 2019 at the age of 22 after a drug overdose at the Kennedy Compound.
Another nephew, Michael Skakel, was convicted in 2002 of the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Connecticut, but his conviction was overturned in 2013 and he was released on bail. In 2020, prosecutors said he would not be retried.
In the six decades since JFK's presidency, the Kennedy name has remained prevalent in politics. Ethel Kennedy's oldest son, Joseph Kennedy II, represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1987 to 1999. Her grandson, Joseph Kennedy III, did the same from 2013 to 2021. Daughter Kathleen Kennedy was Maryland's lieutenant governor for eight years.
Son Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently ended his own independent campaign for president and endorsed Republican former President Donald Trump. Several members of his family denounced the move.
"We believe in [Vice President Kamala] Harris and [running mate Tim] Walz," they said in a statement this summer. "Our brother Bobby's decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear. It is a sad ending to a sad story."
Ethel Kennedy has not spoken publicly about her son's 2024 campaign. But three years ago, she broke with him on the subject of her husband's killer.
A California parole board recommended that Sirhan Sirhan be freed in 2021. RFK Jr. and brother Douglas Kennedy called for his release, while Ethel and the rest of their surviving children opposed the idea of freeing him.
"Bobby believed we should work to 'tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of the world,'" Ethel Kennedy wrote of her husband. "He wanted to end the war in Vietnam and bring people together to build a better, stronger country. More than anything, he wanted to be a good father and loving husband."
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who ultimately denied Sirhan's release, told NBC News that Ethel Kennedy's view on the matter had "weight."
