Robert Francis Kennedy
Robert Francis Kennedy, son of Joseph Patrick Kennedy and Rosa Fitzgerald, was born in Brookline, Massachusetts on November 20, 1925. Kennedy graduated from Harvard University in 1948. He married Ethel Shakel in 1950; their first daughter was born on July 4, 1951. Ethel gave birth to ten more kids over the next few years.
Robert served as a U.S. senator from New York from 1965 to 1968, and he was
appointed as the U.S. attorney general from 1961 to 1964 after his brother John
Kennedy was elected the president in 1960. As the Attorney General Robert worked or civil rights for African Americans, and fought organized crime. As the
Senate, he was a committed advocate of the racial and poor minorities, and
opposed escalation of the Vietnam War. He also was a close advisor to the
president. Kennedy was shot in a kitchen corridor outside the ballroom of the
Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles while campaigning for the Democratic
presidential nomination on June 5, 1968. He died early the next day at age 42.
Kennedy was buried at Virginias Arlington National Cemetery near the grave of his brother John. In 1969 Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant, was sentenced to death after he was convicted of Kennedys murder. In 1972 Sirhan sentence was commuted to life in prison where he remains today, after the California Supreme Court outlawed capital punishment. After the funeral Kennedy’s coffin was taken by train from New York to Washington D.C., with hundreds of thousands of mourners lining the tracks along the route. The train arrived in the nation’s capital that night, and a motorcade transported Kennedy’s body to Arlington Nations Cemetery for a rare nighttime burial.
Robert served as a U.S. senator from New York from 1965 to 1968, and he was
appointed as the U.S. attorney general from 1961 to 1964 after his brother John
Kennedy was elected the president in 1960. As the Attorney General Robert worked or civil rights for African Americans, and fought organized crime. As the
Senate, he was a committed advocate of the racial and poor minorities, and
opposed escalation of the Vietnam War. He also was a close advisor to the
president. Kennedy was shot in a kitchen corridor outside the ballroom of the
Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles while campaigning for the Democratic
presidential nomination on June 5, 1968. He died early the next day at age 42.
Kennedy was buried at Virginias Arlington National Cemetery near the grave of his brother John. In 1969 Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant, was sentenced to death after he was convicted of Kennedys murder. In 1972 Sirhan sentence was commuted to life in prison where he remains today, after the California Supreme Court outlawed capital punishment. After the funeral Kennedy’s coffin was taken by train from New York to Washington D.C., with hundreds of thousands of mourners lining the tracks along the route. The train arrived in the nation’s capital that night, and a motorcade transported Kennedy’s body to Arlington Nations Cemetery for a rare nighttime burial.