Kerry Kennedy is president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. Under her leadership, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights partners with the bravest people on earth to create lasting change. She is the proud mother of three daughters, Cara, Mariah, and Michaela. A human rights activist and lawyer, she authored New York Times best seller Being Catholic Now, as well as Speak Truth to Power and Robert F. Kennedy: Ripples of Hope. 

The seventh of Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy’s eleven children, Kerry Kennedy has devoted more than 40 years to the pursuit of equal justice, the promotion and protection of basic rights, and the preservation of the rule of law. She works on a range of issues, including child labor, women’s rights, disappearances, indigenous land rights, judicial independence, freedom of expression, ethnic violence, criminal justice reform, immigration, impunity, and environmental justice.

She has led hundreds of human rights delegations in support of these causes. 

She appears regularly as a commentator on national and worldwide television networks, and is a frequent contributor to newspapers and magazines.

Kennedy served as Chair of the Amnesty International USA Leadership Council for over a decade. She serves on the board of directors of the United States Institute of Peace, Human Rights First, Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation, Laureate and Leaders, Nizami Ganjavi International Center, HealthEVillages, as well as RFK Human Rights’ numerous international chapters. She is on the Advisory Committee for the Association of American Indian Affairs, the Albert Schweitzer Institute, Sankofa, San Patrignano, and the Center for Victims of Torture.

Kennedy has received high honors from President Lech Walesa of Poland for aiding the Solidarity movement, The Humanitarian award from the Congress of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, and many other honors. A member of the Massachusetts and District of Columbia bars, she is a graduate of Brown University and Boston College Law School. She holds honorary doctorates of law from Le Moyne College, University of San Francisco Law School, and University of New Caledonia, and honorary doctorates of Humane Letters from Bay Path College and the Albany College of Pharmacy.