Robert F. Kennedy

Background

Robert F. Kennedy was the son of Rose and Joseph P. Kennedy. He attended Milton Academy before graduating from Harvard University with a degree in government in 1948 and a law degree from the University of Virginia Law School three years later. Kennedy married Ethel Skakel of Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1950, the daughter of Ann Brannack Skakel and George Skakel, the founder of Great Lakes Carbon Corporation. Skakel and Kennedy had 11 children together.

In 1952, Kennedy managed his older brother John’s successful U.S. Senate campaign from Massachusetts, as well as John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign. During President John F. Kennedy’s administration, he was appointed Attorney General. Attorney General Kennedy successfully prosecuted organized crime. He was also dedicated to assisting African Americans in gaining the right to vote, attend integrated schools, and access public facilities. He believed that voting was the key to attaining racial justice and worked with President Kennedy in drafting the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the most far-reaching civil rights act since the Reconstruction. He was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York in 1964. Kennedy ran a strong statewide campaign and won the election by 719,000 votes. . During his Senate years, Kennedy was consumed by the struggle to end the Vietnam War. As a freshman Senator, Kennedy initially backed the Johnson administration’s Vietnam policies, but he also advocated for a greater commitment to a negotiated settlement and a renewed emphasis on economic and political transformation within South Vietnam. Senator Kennedy later expressed major reservations about President Johnson’s handling of the war. He publicly defied the Johnson administration by advocating that all parties (including the Viet Cong’s political wing, the National Liberation Front) participate in South Vietnam’s political life.

Kennedy declared his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination on March 16, 1968. He won crucial primaries in Indiana and Nebraska and spoke to adoring crowds across the country. He was assassinated on June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, just after winning the state’s important Democratic primary. He was 42 years old at the time.