Kerry Kennedy

Atlanta History Center and A Cappella Books are thrilled to welcome Kerry Kennedy to Atlanta. All tickets include a signed copy of Ethel Kennedy: The Extraordinary Life and Bold Legacy.

When her husband Robert F. Kennedy was killed in 1968, Ethel Skakel Kennedy—then pregnant with their eleventh child—drew national attention for her grace, dignity, and resolute commitment to furthering his work in human rights, even in her grief. But as her daughter Kerry witnessed, Ethel was so much more than a dutiful wife and keeper of Robert's legacy of service. She was courageous, curious, compassionate, boisterous, and witty, always guided by faith and an instinct for speaking truth to power.Kerry delves into her own memories, her family's recollections, and her mother's private papers, describing:

• Ethel's family's journey from a working-class Chicago background to life in Tony Greenwich, Connecticut
• Ethel's fairytale romance with Kerry's father RFK—a courtship that inspired a Taylor Swift song half a century later
• How the bold, athletic Ethel quickly became "more Kennedy than the Kennedys"
• The years on the famed family properties in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and the Hickory Hill estate in Virginia, where Kerry and her ten siblings grew up amidst presidents and politicians, Olympians and Hollywood stars, and a rambunctious menagerie of pet animals
• Moments of pain and loss—RFK’s death just five years after that of his brother; and the tragic deaths of two of Kerry’s siblings
• Ethel’s unflagging commitment to global human rights causes that carried on through the decades

Co-written with Maryanne Vollers, Ethel Kennedy  inspires us to reject cynicism and to live bigger and bolder. The book includes 24 pages of color photographs.

Language provided by publisher.

Kerry Kennedy is a human rights lawyer, activist, New York Times-bestselling author, and daughter of Ethel Skakel Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. Kerry is the president of the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center, the organization Ethel founded in 1968 to continue Robert’s unfinished work, and served as chair for the Amnesty International USA Leadership Council for more than a decade. During her forty years working in human rights she has led hundreds of delegations and negotiated with leaders around the globe. She appears regularly on television and in the press, has written dozens of published op-eds, and is the author of three previous books: Robert F. Kennedy: Ripple of Hope; Speak Truth to Power; and Being Catholic Now.   

This event is in partnership with A Cappella Books