For Immediate Release: March 13, 2008
Further information: Brent R. Carney (617) 514-1662, Brent.Carney@JFKLFoundation.org
Boston MA – On what marks the 40th anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s March 16, 1968 announcement to run for President of the United States, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum will host a one-day conference on the life and legacy of Robert F. Kennedy.
The conference, which will be attended by Mrs. Robert F. Kennedy and members of her family, will feature keynote remarks by Robert and Ethel Kennedy’s eldest daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, as well as two panel discussions by those directly involved or impacted by Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 campaign for the presidency. Panel members include Gerard Doherty, Peter Edelman, Dolores Huerta, Rafer Johnson, Haynes Johnson, Elaine Jones, Michael Sandel, John Seigenthaler, William vanden Heuvel, and Jules Witcover.
Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) announced his candidacy for President of the United States on March 16, 1968 in the Senate Caucus Room – the same room used by Senator John F. Kennedy (D-MA) to announce his candidacy for President.
The conference will be held on Sunday, March 16, from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. in the Stephen Smith Center at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Columbia Point, Boston. The conference is free and open to the public. Click here for reservations.
Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Campaign
Agenda
1:00 p.m. - Welcome and Opening Remarks
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former Lt. Governor of Maryland
1:15 p.m. - Panel One: RFK and the 1968 Campaign
Speakers include: Gerard Doherty, Peter Edelman, Dolores Huerta, Rafer Johnson, William vanden Heuvel, and John Seigenthaler
2:45 p.m. - Screening of historical film footage from the 1968 campaign
3:00 p.m. - Panel Two: RFK, 1968, and the Nation
Speakers include: Haynes Johnson, Elaine Jones, Michael Sandel, Jules Witcover, and John Seigenthaler
4:15 p.m. - Keynote address by U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Campaign
Speaker Biographies
Senator Edward M. Kennedy has represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate for forty-three years. He was elected in 1962 to finish the final two years of the Senate term of his brother, Senator John F. Kennedy, who was elected President in 1960. Since then, Kennedy has been re-elected to seven full terms, and is now the second most senior member of the Senate. He is the youngest of Joseph P. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy's nine children.
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is the oldest child of Robert and Ethel Kennedy. She served as Lt. Governor of Maryland from 1995 to 2003 and had previously served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Attorney General. She is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s School of Public Policy and has been a Visiting Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government where she focused her efforts on faith and public life. She is the author of Failing America’s Faithful: How Today’s Churches are Mixing God with Politics and Losing Their Way.
Gerard Doherty served as Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign director in Indiana. He was also a state representative from 1956 to 1964; managed Edward M. Kennedy’s 1962 campaign for the Senate; and was Jimmy Carter’s New York presidential campaign director in 1976. From 1962 to 1967, he was chairman of the Democratic State Committee, which honored him as Democrat of the Year in 1994. He is an attorney at the Law Offices of Gerard F. Doherty, Esq.
Peter Edelman was a Legislative Assistant to Senator Robert F. Kennedy from 1964 to 1968, and was Issues Director for Senator Edward M. Kennedy's Presidential campaign in 1980. Earlier, he was a Law Clerk to Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg. He is the author of Searching for America's Heart: RFK and the Renewal of Hope. He is currently a Professor at the Georgetown School of Law.
Rafer Johnson was a close friend of Robert F. Kennedy and worked on his presidential campaign. He often traveled with Senator Kennedy during the campaign and was with him at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles the night of the California primary. In the 1960 Olympics, Johnson won a Gold Medal in the decathlon and returned to the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles as the torch bearer and lighter of the Olympic flame. He founded the California Special Olympics in 1969 and remains involved today as coach, head of the Board of Governors in California, and member of the International Board of Special Olympics.
Dolores Huerta founded the National Farm Workers Association (predecessor to the United Farm Workers Union) with Cesar Chavez in 1962. Ms. Huerta fought for better working conditions and organized farm workers to be politically active. Robert F. Kennedy acknowledged her work in helping him to win the 1968 California Democratic Primary. She is President of the Dolores Huerta Foundation which focuses on community organizing and leadership training in low-income, under-represented communities.
William vanden Heuvel was special assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, playing a key role in desegregating the Prince Edward County, Virginia public schools. He has served as ambassador to the United Nations' European Offices and U. S. deputy representative to the United Nations in New York. He has been President of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute since its creation in 1987 and currently serves as Senior Council to the Manhattan-based law firm, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan. He is the author of On His Own: RFK 1964–68.
John Seigenthaler was a journalist for The Tennessean when he joined the U.S. Justice Department during the Kennedy Administration as administrative assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. While attempting to aid the Freedom Riders in Montgomery, Alabama, he was attacked by a mob of Klansmen and hospitalized. He founded the First Amendment Center in 1991 with the mission of creating national discussion, dialogue and debate about First Amendment rights and values.
Haynes Johnson has reported on virtually every major national and international news event in the past four decades. A reporter and editor for the Washington Post for nearly 40 years, he has also appeared regularly on the PBS programs, Washington Week in Review and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1966 for distinguished national reporting of the civil rights struggle in Selma, Alabama (the first time in Pulitzer Prize history that a father and son both received awards for reporting; his father, Malcolm Johnson, won in 1949 for his New York Sun series "Crime on the Waterfront," which formed the basis for the Academy Award-winning film, On the Waterfront) and is the author of several best-selling books. Mr. Johnson broke the story of RFK’s decision to run for President.
Elaine Jones is the retired president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF). After graduating with honors in political science from Howard University, Ms. Jones joined the Peace Corps and became one of the first African Americans to serve in Turkey. This began a long series of "firsts" in her career. Following her two-year Peace Corps stint, she became the first black woman to graduate from the University of Virginia School of Law, and subsequently the first African American to serve on the board of governors of the American Bar Association.
Michael Sandel has been a Professor of Government at Harvard University since 1980. He is the author of Liberalism and the Limits of Justice; Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy; Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics ; and, The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering. His writings also appear in general publications such as The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, and The New York Times.
Jules Witcover covered the 1968 presidential campaign for The Washington Star. He wrote a political column with Jack Germond for 24 years at The Baltimore Sun. He is the author of over 15 books on American politics and history, the most recent being Very Strange Bedfellows: The Short and Unhappy Marriage of Nixon & Agnew.
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is a presidential library administered by the National Archives and Records Administration and supported, in part, by the Kennedy Library Foundation, a non-profit organization.