My View
"Courage," wrote Robert F. Kennedy in his introduction to a reprint of brother JFK's Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Profiles in Courage," "is the virtue that President Kennedy most admired."
I've looked forward to seeing the fourth Kennedy brother, Ted, and his niece, Caroline, every May at the Profile in Courage Awards held at the JFK Museum and Library in Boston.
For the past several years I've been honored to be one of the judges of the Profile in Courage high-school essay contest, which is one part of the annual ceremony. Each year more than a thousand students write an essay about a politician who displayed political courage. But the main focus of the annual ceremony is the presentation of awards to three elected officials or politically-committed individuals who displayed exceptional courage.
Since the JFK Courage program began in l990, major awards have gone to Democrats, Republicans, world leaders and political activists. John McCain and Russ Feingold got the award in l999 for getting their bipartisan campaign finance bill passed. Gerald Ford got an award for his unpopular pardoning of Richard Nixon, following Nixon's resignation after the Watergate scandal. Last May, three gorgeously costumed women from Liberia were recognized for creating a powerful campaign to stand up to violence against women.
The other recipient of last May's award was too ill to be present. It was Sen. Kennedy himself.
It was just a week or so after the awards ceremony of the previous May that the news of Kennedy's brain cancer was announced. The news touched me deeply. Thirty years ago my wife, Elizabeth, 29, died of brain cancer.
In the fall of 2002, one of my students at the Harvard University Extension School, where I teach writing for public relations, nominated me to be an essay-contest judge, and I've attended the ceremony yearly, as well as the judges' annual dinner a few months before the ceremony where many essays are narrowed to a few. The winner of the essay contest is awarded $3,000. He or she and family are brought to the JFK Museum, where Caroline Kennedy presents the award. The ceremony, held in the morning, is televised for the evening news.
Each May I have been stirred by Senator Kennedy's brief talk about courage. His absence from the last ceremony was expected, but still disappointing.
The legacy of the Kennedys is palpable in Massachusetts, and watching the senator speak about courage never failed to move me. In past years I have brought students with me to share the experience. Last May I went alone.
Political courage awards are presented to three politicians whose principled actions or votes risked or ended their political lives, sometimes even bringing them death threats. The acceptance speeches have often been very moving and inspiring.
In 2003 Roy Barnes, former governor of Georgia, gave a very moving acceptance speech about removing the Confederate emblem from the state flag, which earned him expressions of hatred and threats to his family.
A few years ago at the reception following the awards, I drummed up the guts to say a few words to Caroline, who looked approachable.
Ted didn't attend these receptions, which are held on the lower floor of the JFK Museum and Library, with its soaring, expansive windows overlooking Boston harbor. I like to think I have the gumption — don't call it courage — to buttonhole any public figure, but the senator always loomed so large I wonder whether I would have had the temerity to approach him had he been within earshot.
What's especially sad about Ted's death for me is that despite his brilliant career and many acts of political and personal courage — including the bravery and humor displayed in his final months — he will be forever remembered for one notorious and tragic night on a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, when his courage failed him.
But despite that disastrous moment for which he has paid more dearly than we shall ever know, Ted Kennedy managed to do what his father demanded of all his children: Leave a mark on history.
Assassinated, immortalized and iconic, President John F. Kennedy and candidate Robert F. Kennedy left their mark. But I suspect that history will show that it was the lion of the Senate, with all his flaws, who left the greatest mark of any in his illustrious family.
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Robert E. Brown is Professor of Communications at Salem State College and adjunct professor at Harvard University Extension School. He has written previously for Viewpoint.
