Edward Moore Kennedy, United States Senator from Massachusetts, was born the youngest of nine children to Joseph P. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy on February 22, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts. He died on August 25, 2009.
He was educated at Milton Academy and received his B.A. from Harvard University in 1956. Between the years 1951 and 1953, Senator Kennedy served in both Germany and France as a Private First Class in the Infantry Division of the United States Army. In 1958, he attended the International Law School at The Hague in the Netherlands, and was awarded an LL.B. by the University of Virginia Law School in 1959.
[Click here to view a slideshow of early family photographs.]
Senator Edward M. Kennedy represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate for forty-seven 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 was re-elected to eight full terms.
Throughout his career, Kennedy fought for issues that benefitted the citizens of Massachusetts and the nation. His effort to make quality health care accessible and affordable to every American was a battle that Kennedy waged ever since he arrived in the Senate. In addition, Kennedy was active on a wide range of other issues, including education reform and immigration reform, raising the minimum wage, defending the rights of workers and their families, strengthening civil rights, assisting individuals with disabilities, fighting for cleaner water and cleaner air, and protecting and strengthening Social Security and Medicare.
Kennedy served as the senior Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in the Senate. He also served on the Judiciary Committee, where he was the senior Democrat on the Immigration Subcommittee, and on the Armed Services Committee, where he was the senior Democrat on the Seapower Subcommittee. He was also a member of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee and the Congressional Friends of Ireland, a trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., and a founding member of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation's Profile in Courage Award Committee.
Click here to view a slide show of Senator Kennedy at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
Senator Kennedy was married to Victoria Reggie Kennedy. Together, they had five children: Kara, Edward, Jr., Patrick, Curran and Caroline.