One Brief Shining Moment

"In 1967, RFK went to visit poor black families in the Mississippi River delta.  There he interacted directly with children whose bellies were distended by starvation. His daughter Kathleen remembers him walking in upon his return home, 'ashen-faced' and agitated, and trying to convey what he saw to his children as they ate dinner: 'The children are covered with sores and their tummies stick out because they have no food. Do you know how lucky you are? Do you know how lucky you are?  Do something for your country.' The wife of an aide remembered an exchange with him the following day: ‘You don’t know what I saw! I have done nothing in my life! Everything I have done was worthless!’ He was so shaken, so self-deprecating about his life. Mississippi was the worst thing, he needed to dedicate his life to this.” -Evan Thomas, 'Robert Kennedy: His Life'

Jacqueline Kennedy

jacqueline bouvier and her then brother-in-law, michael canfield, at newport casino during ‘tennis week.’ circa august 1953. taken by slim aarons

RFK at a press conference. October 1965.

"A few years before she died, I wrote about all that for Parade magazine, an appreciation of Jackie, not as a superstar but as a good mom…Her kids didn't get into trouble, they didn't drop out, they graduated, they got jobs." - James Brady

Jack used to watch the White House television tour all the time. It was so sweet the way he was proud of me. I was so happy that I could do something that made him proud of me. I was never any different once I was in the White House than I was before, but suddenly everything that had been a liability before: my hair, that I spoke French, that I didn’t just adore campaigning, that I didn’t bake bread with flour up to my arms… When we got in the White House, all the things that I’d always done suddenly became wonderful to people. I was so happy for Jack that he could be proud of me. It made him so happy, and it made me so happy. – Jackie Kennedy, 1964

The Kennedy Family in Palm Beach, c. December 1937