As the photos attest, Ethel Kennedy, age 89, and her daughter, Kerry Kennedy, 57, looked wonderful and glam (I realize this is not p.c., but still they looked so good, comments cannot be ignored) at Tuesday night's 49th annual presentation of the Robert F. Kennedy Book and Journalism Awards.
The awards are given to those writers who "best applied RFK's ideals and values" and instilled his goals and aspirations "in the public interest, on the issues of poverty, political inclusion, and justice," according to the website and remarks by Ms. Kennedy, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, and presidential historian Michael Beschloss who presided with Margaret Engel at the event at the Newseum.
Winners in the journalism category were chosen by 60 judges. The book award went to Matthew Desmond for Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, chosen by writers Peter Edelman, Ruth Marcus, and Annette Gordon Reed.
Journalism categories included college, high school print and high school broadcast, radio, cartoons, new media, and domestic and international print, television, and photography. (A complete list of winners is available here.)
John
Seigenthaler, Jr., presented the John Seigenthaler Journalism Prize to
"Bias on the Bench" by Josh Salman, Emily Le Coz, and Elizabeth Johnson
writing for the Sarasota Herald Tribune. The reporters studied 80 million records to show that judges discriminate against black defendants in Florida. (Mr. Seigenthaler was RFK's close personal aide.)
The
RFK Media Advocacy Prize went to "Rikers" by Bill Moyers, Judy
Doctoroff O'Neill, Marc Levin, Mark Benjamin and Rolake Bamgbose,
Schumann Media Center and Brick City TV in association with Public
Square Media, PBS.
Mr. Moyers was not present and unable to accept the award which was the same for all winners: a bust of RFK, about 18 inches high with a design, reminiscent of the JFK bust at
the Kennedy Center. The busts looked to be bronze and based upon Kerry
Kennedy's reaction when lifting them from a table to present them to the winners, they were bronze.
Receiving "special recognition" was My Own Words by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg written with Wendy Williams and Mary Hartnett. Due to
a long-standing commitment with the American Bar Association, Justice
Ginsburg was unable to attend the presentation and sent a video
message instead.
During
her remarks, Kerry Kennedy made several references to "Daddy" which
seemed odd, simply because she looked too young to remember her father,
but when he was killed in 1968, she was eight years old.
She
quoted from a speech he made to the American Association of Newspaper
Editors in 1961 about the importance of journalism to the lifeblood of
the U.S.: Writers and reporters must dig into government and find out what's
going on, and report it accurately.
Kerry Kennedy issued a refrain: "The press is under attack; our freedoms are under attack" which Mr. Beschloss picked up and repeated.
So much more is at stake this spring, he said, when "values are under assault...hour by hour." Robert Kennedy "didn't denigrate; he dreamed."
At the beginning of the evening
Mr. Beschloss publicly recognized Ethel Kennedy sitting on the front
row with her daughter, before her daughter took the podium.
Ethel
Kennedy is not just "a national treasure," Mr. Beschloss said, "she is a global treasure." Mrs. Kennedy beamed and stood to wave, and the
audience rose to gave her a standing ovation and applaud her achievements and her life.
U.S. Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD and House Minority Whip) at the Robert F.
Kennedy Book and Journalism Awards presentation at the Newseum, May 23, 2017/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Mr.
Beschloss noted that three buildings important to Mr. Kennedy stood
nearby: the U.S. Capitol (he was a U.S. Senator from New York from 1965
to 1968), the Justice Department (he served as attorney general from
1961 until September, 1964) and the White House.
A
short video of the last few years of RFK's life was screened. In one
segment RFK recounted telling his wife that he wanted to start a speech
with a funny story, and Ethel Kennedy replied: "Just point to the top
of your head, and they'll laugh." (Mr. Kennedy had a healthy and
notable head of hair.)
Videos
of less than three minutes each which described themes of each of the
winning articles and book were shown before winners arrived on stage to
accept awards.
A cocktail reception followed. About 200 attended.
Robert F. Kennedy: "One person can make a difference and each of us should try."
patricialesli@gmail.com
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