A tribute to Ethel Kennedy’s enduring legacy of activism, resilience and joy—and a rallying call to fight for justice with everything you’ve got.
For those of us who believe in democracy, justice and human rights, the first months of the Trump administration have been infuriating. On a daily basis, the president finds new ways to recklessly dismantle our government, trample sacred institutions, and break the law with seeming impunity. It’s no wonder so many Americans feel a deep sense of hopelessness.
I’ve felt it myself. But I was raised to hold onto hope, even on the darkest days. Whenever I need a dose of inspiration, I think back to my childhood—to another time when the republic seemed in peril—and to how my mother, Ethel Skakel Kennedy, refused to give in to despair.
For our family—and for so many others—1968 was a year of agonizing loss. Martin Luther King Jr., and my father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, were assassinated within months of each other, the war in Vietnam raged on, violent unrest tore through our nation’s cities and campuses, and protests at the Democratic convention in Chicago were met with a police riot. That November, Republican Richard Nixon was elected president on a law-and-order platform. To many who shared my father’s dreams of peace and equality, it felt as if the country we loved might be lost forever.
Sound eerily familiar?
My mother died last October, and I miss her every single day. I think of her often—especially when trying to digest the horrific news of the day, whether it’s the unlawful arrest and deportation of migrants and asylum seekers to a gulag in El Salvador, or the decimation of programs that serve the most vulnerable members of our society. She would be aghast, too.
But I also know she’d turn to her own unique playbook—one that propelled her full steam ahead, becoming a powerful force against even the most impenetrable tides. The “Ethel Kennedy Playbook” was tried and true, simple and effective, and as relevant today as ever.
Fight—With Every Fiber of Your Being
My mother once said, “To achieve something, you will have to show courage. You are only on this earth once. You must give it all you got.”
This was her guiding principle.
My mother took on human rights abusers everywhere, and always with the same charm, diplomacy and impact. I saw her demonstrate her powers in Mexico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, in Washington, D.C., in front of the Chinese Embassy after Tiananmen Square, in front of the Capitol with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kailash Satyarthi to oppose child labor, and in front of the White House to protest the torture of Sister Dianna Ortiz in Guatemala. Her friend, Bill Clinton, was president at the time, but that didn’t matter to Mum. Being on the right side of history did.
It matters to me too, so at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the organization I lead, we’re fighting back—partnering with other groups to challenge this lawless disregard for the Constitution in court. So far, we’ve filed 21 lawsuits, and I’ve served as a plaintiff in one, opposing the shuttering of the United States Institute of Peace, an independent nonprofit on whose board I serve. Fighting on so many fronts can be exhausting—but it can also be exhilarating.
You can do this too. Call your senator or member of Congress. Volunteer at the polls or register voters. Join a protest. Support a local food bank. Find your lane—and fight with all you’ve got.
Keep Moving and Never Give Up
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl; but whatever you do, keep on moving.” In the 1970s, Mum walked through a jeering mob to visit Cesar Chavez in jail. Forty years later, she led farm laborers from Immokalee, Florida, on a march through the swanky streets of Palm Beach, Fla., to pressure the fast food chain Wendy’s owner Nelson Peltz to pay one penny more for a pound of tomatoes to support the harvesters. By then, she couldn’t walk very far, so Mum completed the march in a wheelchair.
Mum believed justice wasn’t guaranteed—it had to be fought for, day in and day out, by ordinary people who chose to care more than was convenient.
So find your cause, lend your voice, and take that first step—no matter how small. Just keep moving.
Live, Laugh, and Most Importantly, Love
My mother’s commitment to activism never kept her from having fun. She played tennis year-round, sailed and golfed every day of the summer, and quarterbacked touch football games every afternoon when us kids came home from school.
She loved hosting parties, bringing together diverse groups of people, celebrating others’ accomplishments, and playing charades, sardines, and the poetry game.
As Barack Obama reflected at her memorial service, “Her joy, her zest for life, her love for people helped feed in her a righteous anger towards the many injustices in our world. Her life was marked by more tragedy and heartbreak than most of us could bear. And she would have been forgiven, I think, if at any point she had stepped away from public life, or allowed bitterness to fester … but that is not what Ethel did, because that’s not who she was.”
Take time to feed your soul and hug your loved ones. That, too, is part of the fight. Joy is not a distraction from justice, it is a source of it.
There will unquestionably be more difficult days ahead, but it is what we do with them that will ultimately matter. Remember, when things feel overwhelming, remember to take a page from Ethel’s playbook: Do something. Anything. Just start.
