Ethel Kennedy, the widow of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and a dedicated human rights activist, passed away on Thursday at the age of 96, according to her family. Joe Kennedy III, a former Massachusetts representative, shared the news of his grandmother’s death on social media. Ethel Kennedy had been hospitalized after experiencing a stroke the previous week.
In his post, Kennedy reflected on his mother’s legacy of social justice and human rights, noting that she left behind nine children, 34 grandchildren, and 24 great-grandchildren, along with many nieces and nephews who loved her deeply. He mentioned her strong Catholic faith and expressed comfort in knowing she had been reunited with her late husband, Robert F. Kennedy, as well as with her deceased children David and Michael, daughter-in-law Mary, and grandchildren Maeve and Saoirse, along with her great-grandchildren Gideon and Josie.
Part of most influential political families
Ethel Kennedy became part of one of the United States’ most influential political families when she married Robert F. Kennedy, supporting him throughout his Senate campaign and his presidential bid in 1968, which was tragically cut short by his assassination.
Her husband was fatally shot at a Los Angeles hotel shortly after he won the California Democratic primary. This incident, occurring five years after the assassination of his brother, former President John F. Kennedy, left five others injured and further unsettled a nation already reeling from multiple high-profile assassinations, including civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. two months earlier. Iconic photographs captured Ethel Kennedy leaning over her husband in a moment of distress, as she was three months pregnant with their youngest daughter, Rory, at the time.
Ethel Kennedy a dedicated environmental and human rights activist
In the years following her husband’s death, Ethel Kennedy became an activist for environmental and human rights causes, establishing the nonprofit Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights to further the initiatives her late husband championed.
Her activism took her from coast to coast and around the globe, including marching alongside Cesar Chavez for the Farm Workers movement and confronting Kenyan dictator Daniel Arap Moi in 1989 with her daughter, Kerry. In 2014, she was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. Ethel continued her activism into her later years, participating in a hunger strike in 2018 to protest the separation of families at the U.S.-Mexico border under the Trump administration.
At that time, she expressed her belief that generations of Americans had not worked hard and made sacrifices to create a country where children and parents were placed in cages for political gain.
Political turmoil in family
Most recently, Ethel Kennedy’s family faced political turmoil when her eldest son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., ran for president in 2024, first as a Democrat and later as an independent. Many family members, who identified strongly as Democrats, criticized his campaign as “dangerous” and expressed their frustration and sadness. RFK Jr. suspended his campaign in August and later 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, Jean, during a ski trip, and they married in 1950, eventually having 11 children.
Her life, much like that of her family members, was filled with tragedy. Her father, George Skakel, a wealthy coal magnate, and her mother, Ann, died in a plane crash in 1955. A brother also perished in a plane accident in 1966. Her son David died in 1984 due to an accidental drug overdose, and another son, Michael, died in a skiing accident in 1997. In 2019, her granddaughter Saoirse Kennedy Hill died from an accidental overdose, and in 2020, another granddaughter, Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean, drowned alongside her 8-year-old son in a canoe accident.
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