Kerry Kennedy
Mary Kerry Kennedy (born September 8, 1959) is an American lawyer, author and human rights activist. She is the seventh child of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel Kennedy. During her 15-year marriage to future New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, from 1990 to 2005, she was known as Kerry Kennedy-Cuomo. She is the president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, a non-profit human rights advocacy organization.[1]
For the Colorado State Treasurer, see Cary Kennedy.
Kerry Kennedy
She is a younger sister of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent candidate in the 2024 presidential election. Kerry Kennedy does not support her brother for President; Kerry and other members of her family are supporting President Biden for President.[2]
Early life and education[edit]
Mary Kerry Kennedy was born on September 8, 1959, in Washington, D.C. to parents Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel. Three days after her birth, her father resigned as chief counsel of the Senate Rackets Committee to run his brother's campaign for presidency.[3] Kennedy spent her childhood between the family's homes in McLean, Virginia and Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.[4][5] She appeared, at age 3, in the 1963 Robert Drew documentary Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment, saying hello to U.S. Justice Department official Nicholas Katzenbach by phone from the office of her father, who was U.S. Attorney General at the time.[6] Her father was assassinated in 1968.[7] She is a graduate of The Putney School in Vermont[8] and Brown University. She later received her Juris Doctor from Boston College Law School.[9]
Career[edit]
Activism[edit]
Since 1981, Kennedy has worked as a human rights activist, leading delegations into places such as El Salvador, Gaza, Haiti, Kenya, Northern Ireland, and South Korea[10]
She was also involved in causes in China, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Sudan, and Pakistan.[10]
In 1988, Kennedy began serving as the president of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights (now Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights).[1] She was the executive director of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial until 1995.[10] She is the honorary president of the Robert F. Kennedy Foundation of Europe, based in Florence, Italy. She also branched the RFK Human Rights Foundation to Spain with the mission to promote the education about the defense of human rights worldwide.[11] Since 2018, Kennedy is working side by side with the President of the RFK Human Rights Spain appointed by her, María Díaz de la Cebosa, to increase the number of citizens with a working knowledge of human rights concepts.[12]
Kennedy is the chair of the Amnesty International Leadership Council, and her writing has been published in The Boston Globe, The Chicago Sun-Times, and The New York Times.[10] She also serves on the advisory board of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment at Columbia University.
Kennedy also travels the country giving speeches and presentations and calling on her audiences to stand up and fight against human rights violations.[13] In 2017, Kennedy received the Medal for Social Activism from the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Bogota, Colombia for "her impactful efforts on communities throughout the world as a result of her life-long devotion to the pursuit of equal justice."[14]
Honors[edit]
Kennedy holds honorary doctorates of law from Le Moyne College and University of San Francisco Law School, and of Humane Letters from Bay Path College and the Albany College of Pharmacy.[15] She is also a member of the Massachusetts and District of Columbia bar associations.[47]