The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial was originally established as a non-profit organization in Washington, D.C., in October, 1968. The Kennedy family and friends looked to memorialize Robert Kennedy's public service following his assassination on June 5, 1968, in Los Angeles, California. Fred Dutton, a long-time friend and Kennedy ally, was named executive director, and Peter B. Edelman, a member of Kennedy's senatorial staff, became associate director. The chairman of the executive committee was former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara.[citation needed]
The Memorial was announced during a press conference at Hickory Hill in McLean, Virginia, on Tuesday, October 29, 1968. Kennedy's brother Ted led the press conference, stating that the organization would be a "living memorial" that would work in areas of poverty, crime, and education in America. He went on to say the Memorial would be "an action-oriented program that we think will carry on his concerns, his actions, his efforts to work on so many of the problems in this country that have no solutions". He was joined at the press conference by his sisters, Patricia Kennedy Lawford and Jean Kennedy Smith, as well as dozens of Kennedy family friends and aides.[4]
Kennedy's widow Ethel Kennedy did not attend the press conference, but was nearby, in a second-floor bedroom of Hickory Hill on doctor's orders, awaiting the birth of her eleventh child. She issued a statement saying it was the hope of her husband's family and friends that the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial would carry forward the ideals he worked for during his lifetime: "He wanted to encourage the young people and to help the disadvantaged and discriminated against both here and abroad, and he wanted to promote peace in the world. These will be the goals of the memorial."[5]
The memorial and other projects started in Kennedy's memory were later collectively renamed Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights.[6][better source needed]
The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award was created by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in 1984 to honor individuals around the world who show courage and have made a significant contribution to human rights in their country.[citation needed]
The Robert F. Kennedy Book Award was founded in 1980, with the proceeds from Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'s biography, Robert Kennedy and His Times. Each year, the organization presents an award to the book which "most faithfully and forcefully reflects Robert Kennedy's purposes – his concern for the poor and the powerless, his struggle for honest and even-handed justice, his conviction that a decent society must assure all young people a fair chance, and his faith that a free democracy can act to remedy disparities of power and opportunity."[16][better source needed]
Winners
2024 - Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class by Blair LM Kelley
2023 - The Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century by Peniel E. Joseph
2022 - The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee and America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s by Elizabeth Hinton
1996 – Circumstantial Evidence: Death, Life, and Justice in a Southern Town by Pete Earley and The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics by Dan T. Carter
1994 – Taming the Storm: The Life and Times of Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., and the South's Fight Over Civil Rights by Jack Bass and special recognition to Herbert Block for Herblock: A Cartoonist's Life
The Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award was established in 1968 by a group of reporters covering Kennedy's presidential campaign and "honors those who report on issues that reflect Kennedy's concerns including human rights, social justice and the power of individual action in the United States and around the world."[17][better source needed] Entries include insights into the causes, conditions and remedies of injustice and critical analysis of relevant public policies, programs, attitudes and private endeavors.[citation needed]
Led by a committee of six independent journalists, the Awards are judged by more than fifty journalists each year. Previous winners include World News anchor Diane Sawyer.
