Friday, October 11, 2024 -Ethel Kennedy, the widow of assassinated US
politician Robert F. Kennedy, died Thursday at the age of 96, her family said.
"It is
with our hearts full of love that we announce the passing of our amazing
grandmother," former congressman Joe Kennedy III said on social media.
Ethel
Kennedy, who died of complications from a stroke, was a key figure in a family
that counted former president John F. Kennedy -- also assassinated -- and
senator Ted Kennedy among its ranks.
She was also
the mother of Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a vaccine conspiracy theorist whose failed
third-party presidential bid and endorsement of Donald Trump cast a shadow over
the family's dynastic status in American politics and the Democratic Party.
Born Ethel
Skakel in Chicago in 1928, she met her future husband at the age of 17.
Robert
Kennedy -- known as Bobby or RFK -- would go on to serve as US attorney general
in his brother John's administration, serving from 1961 to 1964. He was later a
senator representing New York.
Five years after JFK's assassination, Robert Kennedy was himself shot
dead while running for president in 1968.
Six months after his death, Ethel Kennedy gave birth to the couple's
11th child.
She went on to found Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, an advocacy
organization notable for its work on freedom of expression around the world.
In 2014, then-president Barack Obama honored her with the Presidential
Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian distinction in the United States.
Praising her "lifetime's work in social justice and human
rights," Joe Kennedy III said, "we are comforted in knowing she is
reunited with the love of her life, our father, Robert F. Kennedy."
She is survived by nine children, 34 grandchildren and 24
great-grandchildren, the former congressman said.
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