Robert F. Kennedy Biography Quotes 1 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
Robert Francis Kennedy was born in 1925 into the large, ambitious family of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, an Irish Catholic household that prized public service, competition, and loyalty. Growing up as the third son among siblings who included John F. Kennedy and Edward M. Ted Kennedy, he developed a reputation for seriousness and resolve that contrasted with his brothers public ease. He attended elite schools, served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and returned to complete his studies at Harvard College. He went on to earn a law degree from the University of Virginia, where his interest in public life deepened. In 1950 he married Ethel Skakel, a spirited partner whose political instincts and personal energy amplified his own; together they would raise a large family that became central to his identity and sense of purpose.

Apprenticeship in Washington
Kennedy entered public service as a young lawyer in the U.S. Department of Justice, then moved to Capitol Hill, where the era's fiercest political storms were gathering. He briefly worked with Senator Joseph McCarthy on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, an experience that sharpened his skepticism about excesses in anti-communist crusades. He soon aligned with the Democratic minority on the committee, and later became chief counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field under Senator John L. McClellan. There he confronted organized labor corruption and the power of the Teamsters, clashing repeatedly with James R. Hoffa. The investigations made him nationally known for relentlessness and moral intensity, and he reflected on those battles in his book The Enemy Within, defending strong law enforcement while warning against abuses of power.

1960 Campaign Strategist and Attorney General
As campaign manager for John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential race, Robert Kennedy was strategist, enforcer, and confidant, working closely with advisers like Kenny ODonnell, Pierre Salinger, and Ted Sorensen. He helped navigate crises in the campaign, including the political implications of Martin Luther King Jr.s jailing, and built alliances that stretched across labor, civil rights groups, and traditional party structures.

Appointed U.S. Attorney General in 1961, he became one of the most active and influential occupants of that office. He strengthened federal action against organized crime and reoriented the Justice Department to focus on civil rights enforcement at a moment when the nation confronted segregation and violence. He and his top civil rights deputies, including Burke Marshall and John Doar, protected Freedom Riders, enforced court orders, and oversaw the desegregation of the University of Mississippi when James Meredith enrolled amid deadly unrest. He confronted Governor George Wallace during the desegregation of the University of Alabama and worked with civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, and James Farmer, even as tensions persisted over tactics and pace.

Crisis Management and Controversy
In foreign policy, Kennedy was central to the most perilous moments of the early 1960s. After the failed Bay of Pigs invasion left the administration chastened, he emerged as a key counselor to the president during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. In the secret ExComm deliberations, he argued for a naval quarantine over immediate military strikes and served as back-channel emissary to Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, helping to craft the compromise that defused the confrontation. The episode deepened his belief that strength required empathy and restraint.

His tenure also carried serious controversies. Determined to counter organized crime and safeguard national security, he expanded investigative tools and authorized measures, including surveillance, that drew criticism then and later. Under the long shadow of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and amid political pressures and Cold War suspicions, he approved wiretaps on Martin Luther King Jr., a decision that created a lasting moral stain on an otherwise decisive civil rights record. Kennedy's relationship with Hoover was tense, and he struggled to rein in the FBI while relying on it to enforce the law in the South.

Assassination of the President and a New Path
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 devastated Robert Kennedy. As Attorney General he helped steer the immediate transition of power and attended to the grieving Kennedy family alongside Jacqueline Kennedy. His relationship with the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, was complicated by grief, political rivalry, and differences in temperament. After leaving the Justice Department in 1964, he ran for the U.S. Senate from New York and won, bringing to the chamber a national stature rare for a freshman.

Senator from New York: Poverty, Justice, and War
In the Senate, Kennedy focused on poverty, urban decay, and racial inequality. He sought practical, locally driven solutions and worked across party lines with figures like Senator Jacob Javits. In Brooklyn he helped launch the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration initiative, partnering with community leaders and business allies to rebuild neighborhoods and expand opportunity. He traveled to Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta, bringing attention to hunger and deprivation; his visit with advocates such as Marian Wright, who documented the crisis, pushed policy debates beyond statistics to human realities. He supported the War on Poverty, collaborating with his brother-in-law Sargent Shriver, and pressed to reform the criminal justice system with an emphasis on rehabilitation and juvenile opportunity.

Kennedy's moral imagination extended abroad. In 1966 he visited South Africa, where he voiced a powerful appeal for individual courage against apartheid in his Day of Affirmation address, often remembered for its image of ripples of hope joining to sweep away walls of oppression. On Vietnam, he moved from guarded loyalty to the administration to outspoken criticism of the war's escalation. He called for negotiations and de-escalation, arguing that American power must be matched by humility and respect for self-determination. These views set him increasingly at odds with President Johnson and aligned him with growing antiwar sentiment, even as he sought to bridge divides between students, working-class voters, and communities of color.

1968 Presidential Campaign
In March 1968, after Eugene McCarthy's strong showing in New Hampshire and amid deepening national unrest, Kennedy announced his bid for the Democratic nomination. He presented a coalition politics of conscience, appealing to Black and Latino voters, labor, farmers, Appalachian families, and suburban moderates. He campaigned with seasoned aides such as Frank Mankiewicz, Adam Walinsky, and Peter Edelman, and gained the support of leaders like Cesar Chavez, with whom he stood during the farmworkers movement. His rallies were often tumultuous in size and emotion, reflecting both hope and the country's volatility.

On April 4, 1968, as he campaigned in Indianapolis, he learned that Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. Against the advice of security officials, he spoke to a shocked crowd, invoking shared grief, the need for compassion, and the ancient wisdom of Aeschylus. The city remained calm that night while many others burned, and the moment crystallized his capacity to summon empathy across racial and political lines.

Kennedy won key primaries, lost Oregon to McCarthy, and then captured California on June 4. Moments after speaking to cheering supporters at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, he was shot by Sirhan Sirhan. He died on June 6, 1968. His death, coming five years after his brother's, convulsed the nation. A funeral mass in New York drew leaders and citizens from every walk of life; the slow funeral train to Washington was lined by mourners who saw in him an unfinished promise. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, near President John F. Kennedy.

Family and Legacy
Robert and Ethel Kennedy raised eleven children, among them Kathleen, Joseph II, Robert Jr., and Rory, born after his death. Family remained his anchor, and his siblings, notably Ted Kennedy, carried forward much of the legislative legacy associated with the Kennedy name. His public life intertwined with colleagues and adversaries who helped define an era: Lyndon B. Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, Jimmy Hoffa, Jacob Javits, Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, and countless local leaders and citizens who met him on picket lines, in rural shacks, and on city streets.

Kennedy's legacy rests on the fusion of toughness and compassion. He believed law enforcement could be both vigorous and just, that foreign policy required strength and empathy, and that a wealthy nation had a duty to those left behind. His ability to speak to anger without stoking hatred, and to bind together people who distrusted one another, made him a singular figure in American politics. Though his life ended in 1968, the causes he championed - civil rights, antipoverty work, humane criminal justice, and a foreign policy tempered by moral insight - continued to shape American debate long after the moment when, in the words of those who knew him best, he saw wrong and tried to right it.

Our collection contains 1 quotes who is written by Robert, under the main topics: Happiness.

Other people realated to Robert: Hubert H. Humphrey (Politician), Jackie Kennedy (First Lady), Jerry Springer (Celebrity), Gail Sheehy (Writer), William Manchester (Historian), Dean Rusk (Diplomat), Mark Shields (Journalist), David Talbot (Journalist), Joseph P. Kennedy (Diplomat), George McGovern (Politician)

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