President Joe Biden on Wednesday eulogized Ethel Kennedy, the human rights activist and widow of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, as “a hero in her own right,” remembering her decades of public service and personal friendship to him and his family.
“She got me through a time I didn’t want to stick around,” Biden said at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, referencing the aftermath of the 1972 crash that killed his first wife and daughter and left his two sons seriously injured shortly after he had been elected to the Senate.
The president added: “You know, the fact is, like she did for the country, Ethel helped my family find a way forward with principle and purpose.”
Kennedy, who died last week at age 96, was one of the last vestiges of the “Camelot” era that encompassed her brother-in-law John F. Kennedy’s time as president until his 1963 assassination. Robert Kennedy, who served as attorney general during his brother’s presidency before being elected to the US Senate from New York in 1964, was himself assassinated while running for president in 1968.
Biden has frequently spoken about being inspired by Robert Kennedy – whose legacy served as the lodestar for his own political career – to leave the prestigious white-collar Delaware law firm he joined shortly after graduating law school to become a public defender. “I’ve done so in large part because I thought that’s something your dad would have done,” he told the Kennedys in April, after a large portion of the family publicly endorsed his presidential campaign.
Biden has often mentioned two heroes he had as a young man entering politics. He has kept busts of both on his desk in the Oval Office during his time as president: One of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and one of Bobby Kennedy.
Speaking at Ethel Kennedy’s funeral on Wednesday, Biden recalled receiving letters from her after his inauguration in 2021 and Valentine’s Day that year.
The Valentine’s Day card, he recalled, featured a picture of them surrounded by hearts. It read: “I’m not Biden my time waiting for your Valentine / Because he’s no ordinary Joe.”
“I’ve received a lot of honors in my life,” Biden said, “but that might be the best one I’ve ever received.”
The ties between the Kennedys and Bidens, the only two Catholic presidential families in American history, run deep. Several members of the Kennedys, who remain a deeply influential force in American Democratic politics, endorsed Biden’s run for reelection earlier this year. In doing so, they also denounced the decision of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – Ethel Kennedy’s second-eldest son – to launch a third-party bid against him.
After Biden stepped aside from the presidential race in July, members of the family went on to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. RFK Jr. also suspended his campaign in August and endorsed former President Donald Trump. Kennedy attended his mother’s funeral, though he and Biden did not appear to interact.
Neither families are strangers to profound personal tragedy.
Speaking on the brain cancer diagnosis his son, Beau Biden, received after returning from an overseas deployment, Biden told the crowd, his voice breaking: “Your mom was there then, too.” Beau Biden died from cancer in 2015.
“To the Kennedy family,” Biden said, “the Biden family is here for you, as you’ve always been for us.”
