Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. (born January 17, 1954), also known by his initials as RFK Jr. and the nickname Bobby, is an American environmental lawyer and writer who promotes anti-vaccine misinformation and public health conspiracy theories. He is an independent candidate in the 2024 presidential election (before October 9, 2023, he was a Democratic Party candidate). He is chairman of Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy group.

Kennedy is a son of U.S. attorney general and senator Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of U.S. president John F. Kennedy and senator Ted Kennedy. After growing up in the Washington, D.C. area and Massachusetts, he graduated from Harvard University and obtained his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Through litigation, lobbying, teaching, public campaigns and activism, Kennedy has advocated for the protection of waterways, indigenous rights, and renewable energy. He began his career as an assistant district attorney in New York City. In 1984 and 1986, he joined two non-profits focused on environmental protection: Riverkeeper and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), respectively. His work at Riverkeeper set long-term environmental legal standards. At both organizations, he won historic legal battles against large corporate polluters. He became an adjunct professor of environmental law at Pace University School of Law in 1986. In 1987, he founded Pace's Environmental Litigation Clinic, where he held the post of supervising attorney and co-director until 2017. He founded the non-profit environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance in 1999, serving as the president of its board.

Since 2005, Kennedy has promoted the scientifically disproven claim of a causal link between vaccines and autism. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, he has emerged as a leading proponent of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in the United States. Much of his public health criticisms and writings have targeted prominent figures such as Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, and Joe Biden. He has written books including The Real Anthony Fauci in 2021 and A Letter to Liberals in 2022.

Early life and education

Kennedy was born at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., on January 17, 1954. He is the third of eleven children of senator and attorney general Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy,  Skakel. He is a nephew of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Ted Kennedy.

Kennedy grew up at his family's homes in McLean, Virginia, and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He was nine years old when his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1963, and 14 years old when his father was assassinated while running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968.

Kennedy learned of his father's shooting when he was at Georgetown Preparatory School, a Jesuit boarding school in North Bethesda, Maryland. A few hours later, he flew to Los Angeles on Vice President Hubert Humphrey's plane, along with his elder sister Kathleen and elder brother Joseph, and was with his father when he died. Kennedy was a pallbearer in his father's funeral, where he spoke and read excerpts from his father's speeches at the Mass commemorating his death at Arlington National Cemetery.

After his father's death, Kennedy lived with a surrogate family in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Kennedy was expelled from two boarding schools—Millbrook in upstate New York and Pomfret in Connecticut—for using drugs. In August 1970, Kennedy and his cousin Bobby Shriver were arrested in Barnstable, Massachusetts, for marijuana possession and were placed on 13 months' probation. He graduated from the Palfrey Street School, a day school in Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1972.

Kennedy continued his education at Harvard University, graduating in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts in American history and literature. He then studied at the London School of Economics before earning a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1982, and a Master of Laws from Pace University in 1987.

Career
In 1982, Kennedy was sworn in as an assistant district attorney for Manhattan. After failing his bar exam, he resigned in July 1983. That September, he was charged with heroin possession, and pleaded guilty in February 1984, whereupon he was sentenced to two years' probation and community service. Following his arrest he entered a drug treatment center and during his probation volunteered for the Natural Resources Defense Council. His probation ended a year early. In 1984, Kennedy joined Riverkeeper as an investigator, and when he was admitted to the New York bar in 1985, he was promoted to senior attorney.

Riverkeeper
Kennedy litigated and supervised environmental enforcement lawsuits on the east coast estuaries on behalf of Hudson Riverkeeper and the Long Island Soundkeeper, where he was also a board member. Long Island Soundkeeper brought lawsuits against cities and industries along the Connecticut and New York coastlines. In 1986, Kennedy was on a team of three law firms that won a case against Remington Arms Trap and Skeet Gun Club in Stratford, Connecticut, that ended the practice of shooting lead shot into Long Island Sound. On the Hudson, Kennedy brought a series of lawsuits against municipalities and against industries, including Consolidated Edison and General Electric to stop discharging pollution and to clean up legacy contamination. Kennedy's work at Riverkeeper set long-term environmental legal standards.

In 1995, Kennedy advocated for repeal of legislation during the 104th Congress which he considered unfriendly to the environment. In 1997, Kennedy worked with John Cronin to write The Riverkeepers, a history of the early Riverkeepers and a primer for the Waterkeeper movement.

Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic
In 1987, Kennedy founded the Environmental Litigation Clinic at Pace University School of Law, where for three decades he was the clinic's supervising attorney and co-director and Clinical Professor of Law. Kennedy obtained a special order from the New York State Court of Appeals that permitted his 10 clinic students–second- and third-year law students–to practice law and to try cases against Hudson River polluters in state and federal court, under the supervision of Kennedy and his co-director, Professor Karl Coplan. The clinic's full-time clients are Riverkeeper and Long Island Soundkeeper.

The clinic has sued governments and companies for polluting Long Island Sound and the Hudson River and its tributaries. The clinic argued cases to expand citizen access to the shoreline and won hundreds of settlements for the Hudson Riverkeeper. Kennedy and his students also sued dozens of municipal waste-water treatment plants to force compliance with the Clean Water Act. In 2010, a Pace lawsuit forced ExxonMobil to clean up tens of millions of gallons of oil from legacy refinery spills in Newtown Creek in Brooklyn, New York.

On April 11, 2001, Men's Journal recognized Kennedy with its "Heroes" Award for his creation of the Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic. Kennedy and his Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic received other awards for successful legal work cleaning up the environment. The Pace Clinic became a model for similar environmental law clinics throughout the country including Rutgers, Golden Gate, UCLA, Widener, and Boalt Hall at Berkeley.

Waterkeeper Alliance
In June 1999, as Riverkeeper's success on the Hudson began inspiring the creation of Waterkeepers across North America, Kennedy and a few dozen Riverkeepers gathered in Southampton, Long Island, to found the Waterkeeper Alliance, which is now the umbrella group for the 344 licensed Waterkeeper programs located in 44 countries. As President of the Alliance, Kennedy oversees its legal, membership, policy and fundraising programs. The Alliance states that it is dedicated to promoting "swimmable, fishable, drinkable waterways, worldwide", and is also a clearinghouse, approving new Keeper programs and licensing use of the trademarked "Waterkeeper", "Riverkeeper", "Soundkeeper", "Lakekeeper", "Baykeeper", "Bayoukeeper", "Canalkeeper", "Coastkeeper", etc. names.

Kennedy and his environmental work have been the focus of several films including The Waterkeepers (2000), directed by Les Guthman. In 2008, he appeared in the IMAX documentary film Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk, riding the Grand Canyon in a wooden dory with his daughter Kick and anthropologist Wade Davis.

Kennedy resigned from Waterkeeper Alliance presidency in November 2020.

New York City Watershed Agreement
Beginning in 1991, Kennedy represented environmentalists and New York City watershed consumers in a series of lawsuits against New York City and upstate watershed polluters. Kennedy authored a series of articles and reports alleging that New York State was abdicating its responsibility to protect the water repository and supply. In 1996, he helped orchestrate the $1.2 billion New York City Watershed Agreement, which New York magazine recognized in its cover story, "The Kennedy Who Matters". This agreement, which Kennedy negotiated on behalf of environmentalists and New York City watershed consumers, is regarded as an international model in stakeholder consensus negotiations and sustainable development.

Kennedy & Madonna LLP

In 2000, Kennedy and environmental lawyer Kevin Madonna founded the environmental law firm Kennedy & Madonna, LLP, to represent private plaintiffs against polluters. The firm litigates environmental contamination cases on behalf of individuals, non-profit organizations, school districts, public water suppliers, Indian tribes, municipalities and states. In 2001, Kennedy & Madonna organized a team of prestigious plaintiff law firms to challenge pollution from industrial pork and poultry production. In 2004, the firm was part of a legal team that secured a $70 million settlement for property owners in Pensacola, Florida whose properties were contaminated by chemicals from an adjacent Superfund site.

Kennedy & Madonna was profiled in the 2010 HBO documentary Mann v. Ford that chronicles four years of litigation brought by the firm on behalf of the Ramapough Mountain Indian Tribe against the Ford Motor Company over the dumping of toxic waste on tribal lands in northern New Jersey. In addition to a monetary settlement for the tribe, the lawsuit contributed to the community's land being re-listed on the federal Superfund list, the first time in the nation's history that a de-listed site was re-listed. In 2007 Kennedy was one of three finalists nominated as "Trial Lawyer of the Year" by Public Justice for his role in the $396 million jury verdict against DuPont for contamination from its Spelter, West Virginia zinc plant. In 2017, the firm was part of the trial team that secured a $670 million settlement on behalf of over 3,000 residents from Ohio and West Virginia whose drinking water was contaminated with the toxic chemical, C8, which was released into the environment by DuPont in Parkersburg, West Virginia.

Morgan & Morgan
In 2016, Kennedy became counsel to the Morgan & Morgan law firm. The partnership arose from the two firms' successful collaboration on the case against SoCalGas Company following the Aliso Canyon gas leak in California. In 2017, Kennedy and his partners sued Monsanto in federal court in San Francisco, on behalf of plaintiffs seeking to recover damages for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, that, the plaintiffs allege, were a result of exposure to Monsanto's glyphosate-based herbicide, Roundup. Kennedy and his team also filed a class action lawsuit against Monsanto for failing to warn consumers about the dangers allegedly posed by exposure to Roundup. In September 2018, Kennedy and his partners filed a class-action lawsuit against Columbia Gas of Massachusetts alleging negligence following gas explosions in three towns north of Boston. Of Columbia Gas, Kennedy said "as they build new miles of pipe, the same company is ignoring its existing infrastructure, which we now know is eroding and is dilapidated".

Renewable energy

In 1998, Kennedy, Chris Bartle and John Hoving created a bottled-water company, Keeper Springs, which donated all of its profits to Waterkeeper Alliance. In 2013, Kennedy and his partner sold the brand to Nestlé in exchange for a donation to local Waterkeepers.

Kennedy was a venture partner and senior advisor at VantagePoint Capital Partners, one of the world's largest cleantech venture capital firms. Among other activities, VantagePoint was the original and largest pre-IPO institutional investor in Tesla. VantagePoint also backed BrightSource Energy and Solazyme, amongst others. Kennedy is a board member and counselor to several of Vantage Point's portfolio companies in the water and energy space, including Ostara, a Vancouver-based company that markets the technology to remove phosphorus and other excessive nutrients from wastewater, transforming otherwise pollution directly into high-grade fertilizer. He is also a senior advisor to Starwood Energy Group and has played a key role in a number of the firm's investments.

He is on the board of Vionx, a Massachusetts-based utility scale vanadium flow battery systems manufacturer. On October 5, 2017, Vionx, National Grid and the U.S. Department of Energy completed the installation of advanced flow batteries at Holy Name High School in the city of Worcester, Massachusetts. The collaboration also includes Siemens and the United Technologies Research Center and constitutes one of the largest energy storage facilities in Massachusetts.

Kennedy is a Partner in ColorZen, which offers a turnkey cotton fiber pre-treatment solution that reduces water usage and toxic discharges in the cotton dyeing process.

Kennedy was a co-owner and Director of the smart grid company Utility Integration Solutions (UISol), which was acquired by Alstom. He is presently a co-owner and Director of GridBright, the market-leading grid management specialist.

In October 2011, Kennedy co-founded EcoWatch, an environmental news site. He resigned from its board of directors in January 2018.

Minority and poor communities
In his first case as an environmental attorney, Kennedy represented the NAACP in a lawsuit against a proposal to build a garbage transfer station in a minority neighborhood in Ossining, New York.

In 1987, he successfully sued Westchester County, New York, to reopen the Croton Point Park, which was heavily used primarily by poor and minority communities from the Bronx. He then forced the reopening of the Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, which New York City had closed to the public and converted to a police firing range.

Kennedy has argued that poor communities shoulder the disproportionate burden of environmental pollution. Speaking at the 2016 SXSW Eco environment conference in Austin, Texas, he said, "Polluters always choose the soft target of poverty", noting that Chicago's south side has the highest concentration of toxic waste dumps in America. Furthermore, he added that 80 percent of "uncontrolled toxic waste dumps" can be found in black neighborhoods, with the largest site in the United States being in Emelle, Alabama, which is 90 percent black.

International and indigenous rights
Starting in 1985, Kennedy helped develop the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)'s international program for environmental, energy, and human rights, traveling to Canada and Latin America to assist indigenous tribes in protecting their homelands and opposing large-scale energy and extractive projects in remote wilderness areas.

In 1990, Kennedy assisted indigenous Pehuenches in Chile in a partially successful campaign to stop the construction of a series of dams on Chile's iconic Biobío River. That campaign derailed all but one of the proposed dams. Beginning in 1992, he assisted the Cree Indians of northern Quebec in their campaign against Hydro-Québec to halt construction of some 600 proposed dams on eleven rivers in James Bay.

In 1993, Kennedy and NRDC, working with the indigenous rights organization Cultural Survival, clashed with other American environmental groups in a dispute about the rights of Indians to govern their own lands in the Oriente region of Ecuador. Kennedy represented the CONFENIAE, a confederation of Indian peoples, in negotiation with the American oil company Conoco to limit oil development in Ecuadorian Amazon and, at the same time, obtain benefits from resource extraction for Amazonian tribes. Kennedy was a vocal critic of Texaco for its previous record for polluting the Ecuadoran Amazon.

From 1993 to 1999, Kennedy worked with five Vancouver Island Indian tribes in their campaign to end industrial logging by MacMillan Bloedel in Clayoquot Sound, British Columbia.

In 1996, Kennedy met with Cuban President Fidel Castro to persuade the leader to halt his plans to construct a nuclear power plant at Juraguá. During a lengthy latenight encounter, Castro reminisced about Kennedy's father and uncle, speculating that U.S. relations with Cuba would have been far better had President Kennedy not been assassinated.

Between 1996 and 2000, Kennedy and NRDC helped Mexican commercial fishermen to halt Mitsubishi's proposal to build a salt facility in the Laguna San Ignacio, a known area in Baja where gray whales bred, and nursed their calves. Kennedy wrote against the project, and took the campaign to Japan, meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi.

In 2000, he assisted local environmental activists to stop proposals by Chaffin Light, a real estate developer, and U.S. engineering giant Bechtel from building a large hotel and resort development that, Kennedy argued, threatened coral reefs and public beaches used by local Bahamians, at Clifton Bay, New Providence Island.

Kennedy was one of the early editors of Indian Country Today, North America's largest Native American newspaper. He helped lead the opposition to the damming of the Futaleufú River in the Patagonia region of Chile. In 2016, citing the pressure precipitated by the Futaleufú Riverkeeper's campaign against the dams, the Spanish power company, Endesa, which owned the right to dam the river, reversed its decision and relinquished all claims to the Futaleufú.

Military and Vieques
Kennedy has been a critic of environmental damage by the U.S. military.

In a 2001 article, Kennedy described how he sued the U.S. Navy on behalf of fishermen and residents of Vieques, an island off Puerto Rico, to stop weapons testing, bombing, and other military exercises. Kennedy argued that the activities were unnecessary, and that the Navy had illegally destroyed several endangered species, polluted the island's waters, harmed the residents' health, and damaged its economy. He was arrested for trespassing at Camp Garcia Vieques, the U.S. Navy training facility, where he and others were protesting the use of a section of the island for training. Kennedy served 30 days in a maximum security prison in Puerto Rico. The trespassing incident forced the suspension of live-fire exercises for almost three hours. The lawsuits and protests by Kennedy, and hundreds of Puerto Ricans who were also imprisoned, eventually forced the termination of naval bombing in Vieques by president George Bush.

In a 2003 article for the Chicago Tribune, Kennedy said the U.S. federal government was "America's biggest polluter" and the U.S. Department of Defense as the worst offender. Citing the EPA, he said, "unexploded ordnance waste can be found on 16,000 military ranges...and more than half may contain biological or chemical weapons".

Factory farms
For almost twenty years, Kennedy and his Waterkeepers waged a legal and public relations battle against pollution by factory farms. In the 1990s, he rallied opposition to factory farms among small independent farmers, convened a series of "National Summits" on factory meat products, and conducted press conference whistle stop tours across North Carolina, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio and in Washington DC. Beginning in 2000, Kennedy sued factory farms in North Carolina, Oklahoma, Maryland, and Iowa. He wrote numerous articles on the subject, arguing that factory farms produce lower-quality, less healthy food, and are harmful to independent family farmers by poisoning their air and water, reducing their property values, and using extensive state and federal subsidies to impose unfair competition against smaller farmers.

In 1995, Premier Ralph Klein of Alberta declared Kennedy persona non grata in the province due to Kennedy's activism against Alberta's large-scale hog production facilities. In 2002, Smithfield Foods filed a lawsuit against Kennedy in Poland, under a Polish law that makes criticizing a corporation illegal, after Kennedy denounced the company in a debate with Smithfield's Polish director before the Polish parliament.

Oil, gas, and pipelines
Kennedy has been an advocate for a global transition away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy. He has been particularly critical of the oil industry. In one of his first environmental cases, Kennedy filed a lawsuit against Mobil Oil for polluting the Hudson.

Kennedy helped lead the battle against fracking in New York State. He had been an early supporter of natural gas as viable bridge fuel to renewables, and a cleaner alternative to coal. However, he said he turned against this controversial extraction method after investigating its cost to public health, climate and road infrastructure. As a member of Governor Andrew Cuomo's fracking commission, Kennedy helped engineer the Governor's 2013 ban on fracking in New York State.

Kennedy mounted a national effort against the construction of liquefied natural gas facilities. Waterkeepers maintains a national watch that documents numerous crude oil spills annually.

In 2013, Kennedy assisted the Chipewyan First Nation and the Beaver Lake Cree fighting to protect their land from tar sands production. In February 2013, while protesting the Keystone XL Pipeline Kennedy, along with his son, Conor, was arrested for blocking a thoroughfare in front of the White House during a protest. In August 2016, Kennedy and Waterkeeper participated in protests to block the extension of the Dakota Access pipeline across the Sioux Indian Standing Rock Reservation's water supply.

Kennedy claims that the only reason the oil industry is able to remain competitive against renewables and electric cars is through massive direct and indirect subsidies and political interventions on behalf of the oil industry. In a June 2017 interview on EnviroNews, Kennedy said about the oil industry, "That's what their strategy is: build as many miles of pipeline as possible. And what the industry is trying to do is to increase that level of infrastructure investment so our country won't be able to walk away from it.

Coal
Under Kennedy's leadership, Waterkeeper launched its "Clean Coal is a Deadly Lie" campaign in 2001, bringing dozens of lawsuits targeting mining practices, which include mountaintop removal, slurry pond construction, and targeting mercury emissions and coal ash piles by coal-burning utilities. Kennedy's Waterkeeper alliance has also been leading the fight against coal export, including from terminals in the Pacific Northwest.

Kennedy has promoted replacing coal energy with renewable energy, which, he argues, would thereby reduce costs and greenhouse gases while improving air and water quality, the health of the citizens, and the number and quality of jobs.
In June 2011, film producer Bill Haney televised his award-winning film The Last Mountain, co-written by Haney and Peter Rhodes, depicting Kennedy's fight to stop Appalachian mountaintop removal mining.

Nuclear power
Kennedy has been an opponent of conventional nuclear power, arguing that it is unsafe and not economically competitive. On June 15, 1981, he made international news when he spoke at an anti-nuclear rally at the Hollywood Bowl, with Stephen Stills, Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne.

His 34-year battle to close Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York ended when Entergy, the plant's operator, closed the plant in 2021. Kennedy was featured in a 2004 documentary, Indian Point: Imagining the Unimaginable, directed by his sister, documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy.

Hydro
In 1991, Kennedy helped lead a campaign to block Hydro-Québec from building the James Bay Hydro-project, a massive dam project in northern Quebec.

His campaigns helped block dams on Chile's Biobío River in 1990 and its Futaleufú River in 2016. In 2002, he mounted what was ultimately an unsuccessful battle against building a dam on Belize's Macal River. Kennedy termed the Chalillo Dam a boondoggle and brought a high-profile legal challenge against Fortis Inc., a Canadian power company and the monopoly owner of Belize's electric utility. In a 3–2 ruling in 2003, the Privy Council of the United Kingdom upheld the Belizean government's decision to permit dam construction.

In 2004, Kennedy met with provincial officials and brought foreign media and political visitors to Canada to protest the building of hydroelectric dams on Quebec's Magpie River. Hydro-Québec dropped plans for the dam in 2017.

In November 2017, the Spanish hydroelectric syndicate Endesa decided to abandon HydroAysen, a massive project to construct dams on dozens of Patagonia's rivers accompanied by thousands of miles of roads, power lines and other infrastructure. Endesa returned its water rights to the Chilean government. The Chilean press credits advocacy by Kennedy and Riverkeeper as critical factors in the company's decision.

Cape Wind

In 2005, Kennedy clashed with national environmental groups over his opposition to the Cape Wind Project, a proposed offshore wind farm off of the coast of Cape Cod in Nantucket Sound. Taking the side of Cape Cod's commercial fishing industry, Kennedy argued that the project was a costly boondoggle. This position angered some environmentalists, and brought Kennedy criticism by commentators such as Rush Limbaugh and John Stossel, the latter of which described him as a hypocrite. Kennedy argued in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, "Vermont wants to take its nuclear plant off line and replace it with clean, green power from Hydro-Québec – power available to Massachusetts utilities – at a cost of six cents per kilowatt hour (kwh). Cape Wind electricity, by a conservative estimate and based on figures they filed with the state, comes in at 25 cents per kwh."

Political views

Kennedy's political rhetoric often uses conspiracy theories.

He expressed skepticism about the COVID-19 pandemic, contending that it served to benefit billionaires; according to Kennedy, the pandemic resulted in a "$4.4 trillion shift in wealth from the American middle class to this new oligarchy that we created500 new billionaires with the lockdowns, and the billionaires that we already had increased their wealth by 30%". Kennedy has also stated that the American government is dominated by corporate power; he said the Environmental Protection Agency was run by the "oil industry, the coal industry and the pesticide industry", and described the Food and Drug Administration as overly dominated by "Big Pharma".

Additionally, he has stated his belief that "systematic" erosion of the middle class is taking place, remarking in a 2023 interview with UnHerd that American politicians have "been systematically hollowing out the American middle class, and printing money to make billionaires richer". He stated that the financial industry and the military–industrial complex are funded at the expense of the American middle class. Kennedy sees a "vibrant middle class" as the backbone of the economy and stated that the economy has deteriorated because the middle class has become poorer. In an interview with Andrew Serwer, Kennedy remarked that the gap between rich and poor in the United States had become too great and said, "the very wealthy people should pay more taxes and corporations". He also expressed his support for the wealth tax plan of Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, which would impose an annual tax of 2% on every dollar of a household's net worth over $50 million and a tax of 6% on every dollar of net worth over $1 billion.

An outspoken opponent of the military industry and foreign intervention, Kennedy was highly critical of the Iraq War as well as American support for Ukraine against Russia's invasion of the country. He called the Russian invasion "a US war against Russia" and claimed that the goal of the war was to "sacrifice the flower of Ukrainian youth in an abattoir of death and destruction for the geopolitical ambition of the neocons". He called for a peace agreement in Ukraine based on the Minsk Accords – in his view, the Donbas region should remain in Ukraine but also be given territorial autonomy and placed under the jurisdiction of United Nations peacekeeping forces, while Aegis missile systems should be removed from Eastern Europe. Kennedy also said Ukraine should be forbidden from joining NATO, and announced that as president he would consider admitting Russia to NATO and de-escalating tensions with the People's Republic of China. Further, he claimed that the 2014 Ukrainian revolution was an attempted coup sponsored by the U.S. against the Ukrainian government. Kennedy also said the Ukrainian government committed atrocities against the Russian population in Donbas, wrongly claiming that all casualties of the Donbas War between 2014 and 2022 (about 14,000) were Russian civilians; he also stated that Russians living there "were being systematically killed by the Ukrainian government". Kennedy attacked the operations of former CIA director Allen Dulles, condemning US-backed coups and interventions such as the 1953 Iranian coup d'état as "bloodthirsty", and blamed US interventions in countries such as Syria and Iran for the rise of terrorist organizations such as ISIS and creating anti-American sentiment in the region. Kennedy stated that the CIA has no accountability and declared his intention to restructure the agency.

Describing himself as "arguably the leading environmentalist in the country", Kennedy promotes populist and anti-establishment environmental policies, claiming that the climate crisis was hijacked by "Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum and the billionaire boys' club in Davos". In an interview in 2015, referring to politicians who were skeptical of global warming Kennedy said he "wished there were a law you could punish them under". Kennedy expressed his support for regenerative farming and stated that the priority of environmentalists should be to tackle the "carbon industry". He described the current society and economy as unsustainable and based on a "longtime deadly addiction to coal and oil" and contended that the current economic system rewards pollution; in 2020, Kennedy stated: "Right now, we have a market that is governed by rules that were written by the carbon incumbents to reward the dirtiest, filthiest, most poisonous, most toxic, most war-mongering fields from hell, rather than the cheap, clean, green, wholesome and patriotic fields from heaven." He also stated his support for the Green New Deal resolution of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and announced his plans to implement it. Kennedy spoke out against geoengineering, claiming that geoengineering solutions are an attempt by big business to profit from climate change. Despite his reputation as environmentalist, he voiced his support for agrarian movements, saying in 2023: "If we want to have democracy, we need a broad ownership of our land by a wide variety of yeoman farmers, each with a stake in our system." He is also against nuclear energy, considering it too expensive and too unsafe. Kennedy believes that nuclear energy is a profit-making venture and claims that this solution is promoted by corporate lobbyists rather than environmental activists, stating in a 2023 interview, "it's not hippies in tie-dyed T-shirts who are saying it's dangerous; it's guys on Wall Street with suits and ties".

Views on economic and financial policies
Throughout the presidency of George W. Bush, Kennedy was critical of Bush's environmental and energy policies, saying Bush was defunding and corrupting federal science projects.

Kennedy was also critical of Bush's 2003 hydrogen car initiative, arguing that it was a gift to the fossil fuel industry disguised as a green automobile.

In 2003, Kennedy wrote an article in Rolling Stone about Bush's environmental record, which he subsequently expanded into a New York Times bestselling book. His opposition to the environmental policies of the Bush administration earned him recognition as one of Rolling Stone "100 Agents of Change" on April 2, 2009.

During an October 2012 interview with Politico, Kennedy called on environmentalists to direct their dissatisfaction towards the U.S. Congress rather than President Barack Obama, reasoning that Obama "didn't deliver" due to having a partisan U.S. Congress "like we haven't seen before in American history". He said politicians who did not act on climate change policy served special interests and sold out public trust. He said Charles and David Koch – the owners of Koch Industries, Inc., the nation's largest privately owned oil company – subverted democracy and "[made] themselves billionaires by impoverishing the rest of us". Kennedy has spoken of the Koch Brothers as leading "the apocalyptical forces of Ignorance and Greed".

During the 2014 People's Climate March, Kennedy said, "American politics is driven by two forces: One is intensity, and the other is money. The Koch brothers have all the money. They're putting $300 million this year into their efforts to stop the climate bill. And the only thing we have in our power is people power, and that's why we need to put this demonstration on the street".

Additional statements on foreign affairs
Kennedy has written on foreign policy, beginning with a 1974 Atlantic Monthly article titled, "Poor Chile", discussing the overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende. Kennedy also wrote editorials against the execution of Pakistan President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto by General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. In 1975, he published an article in The Wall Street Journal, criticizing the use of assassination as a foreign policy tool. In 2005, he wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times decrying President Bush's use of torture as anti-American. His uncle Senator Ted Kennedy entered the article into the Congressional Record.

In an article titled "Why the Arabs Don't Want Us in Syria", published in Politico in February 2016, Kennedy referred to the "bloody history that modern interventionists like George W. Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio miss when they recite their narcissistic trope that Mideast nationalists 'hate us for our freedoms.' For the most part they don't; instead they hate us for the way we betrayed those freedomsour own idealswithin their borders". Kennedy blames the Syrian war on a pipeline dispute. He cites apparent WikiLeaks disclosures alleging that the CIA led military and intelligence planners to foment a Sunni uprising against Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, following his rejection of a proposed Qatar-Turkey pipeline through Syria in 2009, well before the Arab Spring.

In June 2023, Kennedy stated in an interview that on broad terms he believes that U.S. foreign relations should involve significantly reducing the military presence in other nations. He specifically said the country must "start unraveling the Empire" through closing U.S. bases in different locations worldwide.

Kennedy believes that the administration of President Joe Biden in large part caused the 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia due to reckless and militant action; he has specifically cited the issue of NATO expansion into Eastern Europe. At the same time, he has clarified that he refuses to connect this criticism with anything considered support of the government of Russia under Putin, particularly given Kennedy's ethical opposition to the regime's beliefs and politics. He has remarked that "Putin is a monster" and also labeled the leader "a thug" as well as "a gangster".

Gun control
Kennedy has stated that he supports "common sense" gun control, but has also said that he would not "take away anybody's guns." He has explained his position saying "I'm a constitutional absolutist. We can argue about whether the Second Amendment was intended to protect guns. That argument has now been settled by the Supreme Court." Kennedy also expressed support for a bipartisan assault weapons ban.

Abortion
In 2023, Kennedy said on camera to NBC reporter Ali Vitali that, if elected, he would sign a federal ban on abortions performed after 15 weeks or 21 weeks of pregnancy. He went on to say, "I think the states have a right to protect a child once the child becomes viable, and that right, it increases." His campaign quickly released a statement saying, "Today, Mr. Kennedy misunderstood a question posed to him by a NBC reporter in a crowded, noisy exhibit hall at the Iowa State Fair....Mr. Kennedy's position on abortion is that it is always the woman's right to choose. He does not support legislation banning abortion."

Questioning the validity of elections
Kennedy has been critical of the integrity of the voting process. In June 2006, he published an article in Rolling Stone purporting to show that GOP operatives stole the 2004 presidential election for President George W. Bush. Journalist Farhad Manjoo countered Kennedy's conclusions.

Kennedy has written about the ease of election hacking and the dangers of voter purges and voter ID laws. He wrote the introduction and a chapter in Billionaires and Ballot Bandits, a 2012 book on election hacking by the investigative journalist Greg Palast.

Political endorsements
Kennedy was on his uncle Ted Kennedy's 1970 and 1976 Massachusetts senatorial campaigns and was on the National Staff and was a State Coordinator for his uncle's President campaign from 1979 to 1980. He was a co-founder and a former board member of the New York League of Conservation Voters.

Kennedy endorsed and campaigned for Vice President Al Gore during his 2000 presidential campaign, and openly opposed his friend Ralph Nader's Green Party presidential campaign. In the 2004 presidential election, Kennedy endorsed John Kerry, noting his strong environmental record.

In late 2007, Kennedy and his sisters Kerry and Kathleen endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries. After the Democratic Convention, Kennedy campaigned for Obama across the country. After the election, the Obama administration was reportedly considering Kennedy as a candidate for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, but his controversial statements and an arrest for heroin possession in the 1980s made him unlikely to receive Senate confirmation.

Political aspirations
Kennedy first considered running for political office in 2000, when New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan did not seek re-election to the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Kennedy's father.

In 2005, Kennedy considered running in the 2006 election for New York attorney general, which would have meant a possible run against his then brother-in-law Andrew Cuomo, but in the end he decided against entering the race, even though he had been considered the frontrunner.

On December 2, 2008, Kennedy stated that he did not wish to be appointed by New York Governor David Paterson to the U.S. Senate seat that was expected to be vacated by Hillary Clinton, who had been designated as the choice of Obama to serve as his United States secretary of state. Kennedy had been speculated by some outlets as a prospective candidate for appointment. He felt that senate service would take too much time away from his family.

2024 presidential campaign

On March 3, 2023, in a speech in New Hampshire, Kennedy stated that he was considering a run for president in 2024, saying, "I am thinking about it. I've passed the biggest hurdle which is that my wife has greenlighted it."

On April 5, 2023, Kennedy filed his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2024 presidential election. On October 9, 2023, he announced he was running as an independent. This makes him the fifth member of his family to seek the presidency of the United States.

Anti-vaccine advocacy and conspiracy theories on public health

Overview
Kennedy is a prominent voice in the anti-vaccine movement, spreading anti-vaccine misinformation, disinformation and propaganda.

Infectious disease specialist Michael Osterholm says  Kennedy's "anti-vaccine disinformation" is effective "because it's portrayed to the public with graphs and figures and what appears to be scientific data. He has perfected the art of illusion of fact." Osterholm also adds "this is about people's lives. And the consequences of promoting this kind of disinformation, as credible as it may seem, is simply dangerous."

Kennedy has claimed that he is not against vaccines but wishes that they be more thoroughly tested and investigated. In Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak, Kennedy states he does not see himself as anti-vaccine, saying "People who advocate for safer vaccines should not be marginalized or denounced as anti-vaccine. I am pro-vaccine. I had all six of my children vaccinated. I believe that vaccines have saved the lives of hundreds of millions of humans over the past century and that broad vaccine coverage is critical to public health. But I want our vaccines to be as safe as possible."

Vaccines and autism claims

Kennedy is the chairman of Children's Health Defense (formerly known as the World Mercury Project), an anti-vaccine advocacy group he joined in 2015. The group alleges a large proportion of American children are suffering from conditions as diverse as autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, food allergies, cancer, and autoimmune diseases due to exposure to certain chemicals and radiation. Children's Health Defense has blamed and campaigned against vaccines, fluoridation of drinking water, paracetamol (acetaminophen), aluminum, wireless communications, among others. Kennedy's group has been identified as one of two major buyers of anti-vaccine Facebook advertising in late 2018 and early 2019.

Kennedy and Children's Health Defense have falsely claimed that vaccines cause autism. Kennedy focused on the subset of vaccines that contained thimerosal, a mercury-based anti-microbial which has been falsely claimed to cause autism. Thimerosal has never been used in MMR, chickenpox, pneumococcal conjugate and inactivated polio vaccines and in 2001 was removed from all other childhood (under 6 years old) vaccines except for a few versions of the flu and hepatitis vaccines.   Now, no childhood vaccine contains more than traces (1 microgram or less) of thimerosal, except for flu which is also available without thimerasol in the US. For those 6 years and older, including pregnant women, all vaccines are now available in versions with only trace amounts of thimerosal.

In its early years, the group focused on mercury in industry and medicine, especially the ethylmercury used in thimerosal in vaccines. Other members of his family have criticized Kennedy and his organization, saying he spreads "dangerous misinformation" and said his work has "heartbreaking" consequences.

According to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Kennedy uses his status as an environmental activist to bolster actors of the anti-vaccination movement, regularly appearing in online conversations with the likes of Andrew Wakefield, Del Bigtree and Rashid Buttar. Kennedy has stated the media and governments are engaged in a conspiracy to deny that vaccines cause autism. The Center for Countering Digital Hate in 2021 identified Kennedy as one of 12 people responsible for up to 65% of anti-vaccine content on social media platforms Facebook and Twitter. On February 11, 2021, his Instagram account was permanently deleted "for repeatedly sharing debunked claims" about COVID-19 vaccines.

Kennedy is listed as executive producer of Vaxxed II: The People's Truth, the 2019 sequel to Wakefield's and Bigtree's anti-vaccination documentary Vaxxed.

Writings and speeches promoting anti-vaccine theories
In June 2005, Kennedy wrote an article which appeared in both Rolling Stone and Salon called "Deadly Immunity", alleging a government conspiracy to conceal a connection between thimerosal and childhood neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism. The article contained factual errors, leading Salon to issue five corrections. Joan Walsh, the editor and chief of Salon at the time, and the sole Salon editor of the piece, recounted that she had mistakenly relied on Rolling Stone's fact-checking, a process that she later learned was "less than arduous". As soon as the piece was up, she said, "we were besieged by scientists and advocates showing how Kennedy had misunderstood, incorrectly cited, and perhaps even falsified data.... It was the worst mistake of my career. I probably should have been fired." Six years later Salon retracted the article in its entirety. According to Salon, the retraction was motivated by accumulating evidence of alleged errors and scientific fraud underlying the vaccine-autism claim. A corrected version of the original article was published on the Rolling Stone website. Kennedy would go on to claim on the Joe Rogan Experience, and be paraphrased in the New York Times saying, that "Salon caved to pressure from government regulators and the pharmaceutical industry." To which Walsh responds "That's just another lie. We caved to pressure from the incontrovertible truth and our journalistic consciences."

In May 2013, Kennedy delivered the keynote address at the anti-vaccination AutismOne / Generation Rescue conference.

In 2014, Kennedy's book, Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak: The Evidence Supporting the Immediate Removal of Mercurya Known Neurotoxinfrom Vaccines, was published. While methylmercury is a potent neurotoxin, ethylmercury, as used in vaccine preservatives, is safe. The preface to the book is written by Mark Hyman, a proponent of the alternative medical treatment called functional medicine. Kennedy has published many articles on the inclusion of the mercury-based preservative thimerosal in vaccines.

Describing vaccinations as a "holocaust"
In April 2015, Kennedy participated in a Speakers' Forum to promote the film Trace Amounts, which promotes the discredited claim of a link between autism and mercury in vaccinations. At a film screening, Kennedy described the autism epidemic as a "holocaust".

Statements about Paul Offit
On the Joe Rogan Experience, Kennedy claimed that pediatric immunologist Paul Offit had made a 186 million dollar deal with Merck, to which Offit responded:

Meeting with Donald Trump
On January 10, 2017, incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer confirmed that Kennedy and President-elect Donald Trump met to discuss a position in the Trump administration. Kennedy said he had accepted an offer made by Trump to become the chairman of the Vaccine Safety Task Force, but a spokeswoman for Trump's transition said that no final decision had been made. In an August 2017 interview with STAT News reporter Helen Branswell, Kennedy said that he had been meeting with the federal public health regulators to discuss defects in vaccine safety science, at the White House's request.

Controversy with Robert De Niro
On February 15, 2017, Kennedy and actor Robert De Niro gave a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., in which they said the press were working for the vaccination industry and did not allow debates on vaccination science. They offered a $100,000 reward to any journalist or other citizen who could point to a study showing that it is safe to inject mercury into babies and pregnant women at levels currently contained in flu vaccines. Craig Foster, a psychology professor who studies pseudoscience, deemed the challenge "not science", observing that it was a "carefully constructed 'contest' that allows its creators to generate the misleading outcome they presumably want to see". He also stated, "Proving that something is safe is importantly different than proving that something is harmful".

Samoa measles outbreak
On June 4, 2019, during a visit to Samoa coinciding with that nation's 57th annual independence celebration, Kennedy appeared in an Instagram photo with Australian-Samoan anti-vaccine activist Taylor Winterstein. Kennedy's charity and Winterstein have both perpetuated the allegation that the MMR vaccine played a role in the 2018 deaths of two Samoan infants, despite the subsequent revelation that the infants had received a muscle relaxant along with the vaccine by mistake. Kennedy has drawn criticism for fueling vaccine hesitancy amid a social climate which gave rise to the 2019 Samoa measles outbreak, which killed over 70 people, and the 2019 Tonga measles outbreak.

COVID-19

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kennedy promoted multiple conspiracy theories related to COVID including false claims that both Anthony Fauci and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation were trying to profit off a vaccine, and suggesting that Bill Gates would cut off access to money of people who do not get vaccinated, allowing them to starve. In August 2020, Kennedy appeared in an hour-long interview with Alec Baldwin on Instagram, where he touted a number of incorrect and misleading claims about vaccines and public health measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Baldwin was criticized by public health officials and scientists for allowing Kennedy's proclamations to go unchallenged. Kennedy has promoted misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine, falsely suggesting that it contributed to the death of 86-year-old Hank Aaron and others. In February 2021 his Instagram account was blocked for "repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines". The Center for Countering Digital Hate identified Kennedy as one of the main propagators of conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and 5G phone technology. His conspiracy theory activities increased his social media impact considerably; between the Spring and the Fall of 2020, his Instagram account grew from 121,000 followers to 454,000.

In November 2021, Kennedy's book The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health was published wherein Kennedy alleged that Fauci sabotaged treatments for AIDS, violated federal laws, and conspired with Bill Gates and social media companies such as Facebook to suppress any information about COVID-19 cures, to leave vaccines as the only options to fight the pandemic.
In the book, Kennedy calls Fauci "a powerful technocrat who helped orchestrate and execute 2020s historic coup d'etat against Western democracy." He claimed with no proof that Fauci and Bill Gates had schemed to prolong the pandemic and exaggerate its effects, promoting expensive vaccinations for the benefit of "a powerful vaccine cartel". The book repeats several discredited myths about the COVID-19 pandemic, notably about the effectiveness of ivermectin. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung has said of the book "... polemics alternate with chapters that pedantically seek to substantiate Kennedy's accusations with numerous quotations and studies." He also released a video depicting Fauci with a Hitler moustache. In response to the book, Fauci called Kennedy "a very disturbed individual".

Kennedy wrote the foreword for Plague of Corruption, a 2020 book by former research scientist and anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Judy Mikovits.

Kennedy appeared as a speaker at the partially violent demonstration in Berlin on August 29, 2020, where populist groups called for an end to restrictions caused by COVID-19. His YouTube account was removed in late September 2021 for breaking the company's new policies on vaccine misinformation.

During a January 23, 2022, speech at an anti-vaccination rally in Washington D.C., Kennedy said: "Even in Hitler's Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you can hide in the attic like Anne Frank did…Today the mechanisms are being put in place that will make it so none of us can run, none of us can hide." The Auschwitz Memorial stated on Twitter: "Exploiting of the tragedy of people who suffered, were humiliated, tortured & murdered by the totalitarian regime of Nazi Germanyincluding children like Anne Frankin a debate about vaccines & limitations during global pandemic is a sad symptom of moral & intellectual decay." Two days later, Kennedy apologized for his comment, In June 2023, Instagram reinstated his account after previously suspending it over anti-vaccine and COVID-19 comments.

At a dinner event in July 2023, Kennedy said "there is an argument that (COVID-19) is ethnically targeted", adding "COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese ... we don't know whether it's deliberately targeted or not." His remarks were condemned by the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, with the latter stating that Kennedy's statement "feeds into sinophobic and antisemitic conspiracy theories". Kennedy responded by stating that he "never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews", and that he does not "believe and never implied that the ethnic effect was deliberately engineered". Kennedy explained his remarks by citing a 2021 study that he said showed that "COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affect certain races" due to racial differences in the effectiveness of COVID-19's furin cleave docking site, thus COVID-19 "serves as a kind of proof of concept for ethnically targeted bioweapons". However, these further claims were roundly criticized by experts who pointed out that the study said nothing about Chinese people or bioweapons and that both Chinese people and Ashkenazy Jews suffered COVID at rates similar to other ethnic groups and nationalities. " Virologist Angela Rasmussen responded to his false claims, saying, "Jewish or Chinese protease consensus sequences are not a thing in biochemistry, but they are in racism and antisemitism".

Medical racism conspiracy theory

Kennedy targets Black Americans with anti-vaccine propaganda and conspiracy theories, linking vaccination with instances of medical racism such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Echoing others in the anti-vaccination movement, Kennedy's organization Children's Health Defense claimed that the United States government seeks to harm ethnic minorities by prioritizing them for COVID vaccines. In early March 2021, Kennedy's anti-vaccine organization, Children's Health Defense released an anti-vaccine propaganda video, "Medical Racism: The New Apartheid" that promotes COVID-19 conspiracy theories and claims that COVID-19 vaccination efforts are medical experiments on the Black community. Kennedy himself appears in the video, inviting the viewers to disregard information dispensed by health authorities and doctors. Brandi Collin-Dexter, a Fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy states "the notorious figures and false narratives in the documentary were recognizable" and "the film's incompatible narratives sought to take advantage of the pain felt by Black communities". At the urging of disinformation experts, the film was removed from Facebook, but Kennedy was permitted to keep his account.

HIV/AIDS denialism
In his book The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the War on Democracy and Public Health, Kennedy says he takes "no position on the relationship between HIV and AIDS", but he spends over a hundred pages quoting HIV denialists such as Peter Duesberg who question the isolation of HIV and the etiology of AIDS. Kennedy himself refers to the "orthodoxy that HIV alone causes AIDS", and the "theology that HIV is the sole cause of AIDS", as well as repeating the HIV/AIDS denialist false claim that no one has isolated the HIV particle and "No one has been able to point to a study that demonstrates their hypothesis using accepted scientific proofs". Additionally, he repeats the false claim that the early AIDS drug AZT is "absolutely fatal" due to its "horrendous toxicity". Molecular biologist Dan Wilson points out that Kennedy falsely claims that Luc Montagnier, the discoverer of HIV, was a "convert" to Duesberg's fringe hypothesis. Wilson concludes that Kennedy is a "full blown" HIV/AIDS denialist.

Push-back from the Kennedy family
Several members from Kennedy's close family have distanced themselves from his anti-vaccination activities and conspiracy theories on public health, and condemned his comments equating public health measures with Nazi atrocities. On May 8, 2019, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Joseph P. Kennedy, and Maeve Kennedy McKean wrote an open letter stating that while their relative has championed many admirable causes, he "has helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines". On December 30, 2020, Kennedy's niece Kerry Kennedy Meltzer, a physician, wrote a similar open letter. She argued her uncle published misinformation about the side effects of the new COVID-19 vaccines.

Other opinions

Food allergies
Kennedy was a founding board member of the Food Allergy Initiative. His son suffers from anaphylactic peanut allergies. Kennedy wrote the foreword to The Peanut Allergy Epidemic, in which he and the authors falsely link increasing food allergies in children to certain vaccines that were approved beginning in 1989.

Murder of Martha Moxley
In January 2003, Kennedy wrote a controversial article in The Atlantic Monthly about the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Connecticut, in which he insists that his cousin Michael Skakel's indictment "was triggered by an inflamed media, and that an innocent man is now in prison". The article argues that there is more evidence suggesting that Kenneth Littleton, the Skakel family's live-in tutor, killed Moxley. He also calls Dominick Dunne the "driving force" behind Skakel's prosecution. In July 2016, Kennedy released a book titled Framed: Why Michael Skakel Spent over a Decade in Prison for a Murder He Didn't Commit. In 2017, the rights to Kennedy's book were optioned by FX Productions to develop a multi-part television series.

In 2018, Skakel's conviction was vacated, and in 2020, prosecutors decided not to seek a new trial.

Assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy
On the evening of January 11, 2013, Charlie Rose interviewed Kennedy and his sister Rory at the Winspear Opera House in Dallas as a part of then Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings' hand-chosen committee's yearlong program of celebrating the life and presidency of John F. Kennedy. On the assassination of John F. Kennedy, he said his father was "fairly convinced" Lee Harvey Oswald had not acted alone and privately believed the Warren Commission report was a "shoddy piece of craftsmanship". According to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in January 2013, "The evidence at this point I think is very, very convincing that it was not a lone gunman". The 2013 edition of JFK and the Unspeakable was endorsed by Kennedy, who said it had moved him to visit Dealey Plaza, the site of his uncle's assassination, for the first time.

Kennedy does not believe that Sirhan Sirhan fired the shot that killed his father, Robert F. Kennedy. Based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, especially Paul Schrade who had been standing next to Kennedy and who was shot himself, as well as the autopsy findings he believes that there was a second gunman. He visited the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, San Diego, in December 2017 to meet Sirhan. After meeting Sirhan, he gave his support for a reinvestigation of the assassination.

Gender dysphoria

In a June 2023 podcast interview with Jordan Peterson, Kennedy Jr. posited that several issues in children, including gender dysphoria, might be linked to atrazine contamination in the water supply. He cited a study by Hayes from 2010, which claimed that acute atrazine exposure caused chemical castration and feminization in frogs, leading some to become hermaphrodites. Kennedy Jr. went on to suggest that there was other evidence indicating potential effects on humans. YouTube removed the interview under its vaccine misinformation policy, a decision criticized by Peterson and Kennedy as censorship.

Various publications denounced the theory, such as NBC News, Philadelphia Gay News, The Independent, and Vice.

Following media criticism, a spokesperson for Kennedy Jr.'s 2024 presidential campaign told CNN that he was being mischaracterized, and that he not was claiming that endocrine disruptors were the sole cause of gender dysphoria but rather proposing further research. Andrea Gore, a professor of neuroendocrinology at the University of Texas at Austin, said "I don't think people should be making statements about the relationship between environmental chemicals and changes in sexuality when there's zero evidence".

Personal life

General interests
Kennedy is a licensed master falconer and has trained hawks since he was 11. He breeds hawks and falcons and is also licensed as a raptor propagator and a wildlife rehabilitator. He holds permits for Federal Game Keeper, Bird Bander, and Scientific Collector. He was President of the New York State Falconry Association from 1988 to 1991. In 1987, while on Governor Mario Cuomo's New York State Falconry Advising Committee, Kennedy authored the examination to qualify apprentice falconers given by New York State. Later that year, he wrote the New York State Apprentice Falconer's Manual, which was published by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and continues in use today.

Kennedy is also a whitewater kayaker. His father introduced him and his siblings to whitewater kayaking during early trips down the Green and Yampa Rivers in Utah and Colorado, the Columbia River, the Middle Fork Salmon in Idaho, and the Upper Hudson Gorge. Between 1976-81, Kennedy was a partner and guide at a whitewater company, "Utopian", based in West Forks, Maine. He organized and led several "first-descent" whitewater expeditions to Latin America including three hitherto unexplored rivers: the Apurimac, Peru, in 1975; the Atrato, Colombia, in 1979; and the Caroni, Venezuela, in 1982. He made an early descent of Great Whale River in northern Quebec, in 1993.

In 2015, he took two of his sons to the Yukon to visit Mount Kennedy and run the Alsek River, a whitewater river fed by the Alsek Glacier. Mount Kennedy had been Canada's highest unclimbed peak, when the Canadian Government named it for the assassinated American president, in 1964. In 1965, his father was the first person to climb Mount Kennedy.

Marriages and children
On April 3, 1982, Kennedy married Emily Ruth Black (born 1957), whom he had met at the University of Virginia School of Law. They had two children: Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy III (born 1984; married to writer, peace activist, and former CIA officer Amaryllis Fox) and Kathleen Alexandra ('Kick') Kennedy (born 1988). The latter shares the nickname of her great-aunt, the late Kathleen Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington. Kennedy and Black separated in 1992 and divorced in 1994.

On April 15, 1994, Kennedy married Mary Kathleen Richardson (1959–2012) aboard a research vessel on the Hudson River. They had four children: Conor Richardson Kennedy (born 1994), Kyra LeMoyne Kennedy (born 1995), William Finbar "Finn" Kennedy (born 1997), and Aidan Caohman Vieques Kennedy (born 2001). On May 12, 2010, Kennedy filed for divorce from Mary; three days later she was charged with drunk driving. On May 16, 2012, Mary was found dead in a building on the grounds of her home in Bedford, New York. The Westchester County Medical Examiner ruled the death to be a suicide due to asphyxiation from hanging. Later it was reported that Mary had seen Kennedy's personal journal from 2001, in which he recorded his sexual encounters with 37 different women.

Kennedy married his third wife, actress-director Cheryl Hines, on August 2, 2014, at the Kennedy compound on Cape Cod. They were introduced by Hines' co-star Larry David, from the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm, and began dating in 2012. Kennedy and Hines currently reside in Los Angeles, California and Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Health
In his 40s Kennedy developed spasmodic dysphonia, a disorder which causes his voice to quaver and makes speech difficult. It is a form of an involuntary movement disorder called dystonia that affects only the larynx.

Religion
Kennedy is a Roman Catholic. In 2005, Michael Paulson called Kennedy "a deeply devout Catholic who attends daily Mass". Kennedy considers Saint Francis of Assisi his patron saint and a role model. During a 2005 interview with The Boston Globe, Kennedy stated that he was deeply inspired by Saint Francis' devotion to social justice, helping the poor, animal welfare and to environmentalism as well, as Francis is a patron saint of ecology. In 2004, Kennedy published a biography of Saint Francis, Saint Francis of Assisi: A Life of Joy. He also stated Catholicism was a vehicle of his environmentalism, stating, "environmental work is spiritual work". Despite identifying as pro-life, Kennedy also identifies with liberal Catholicism. He criticized the argument voiced within the church that John Kerry should have been denied communion because of his support for abortion rights. In a 2018 interview with Vatican News, Kennedy expressed his admiration for Pope John XXIII and stated his belief that "the Church should be an instrument of justice and kindness around the world."

Selected works
Kennedy has authored books on subjects such as the environment, his anti-vaccination stance, biography, and American heroes.

Children's books

Select awards and recognition
Kennedy has received awards in his name or groups he has been part of have received awards.
 2018, The National Trial Lawyers, Mass Tort Trial Team of the Year – for "groundbreaking case of Dewayne "Lee" Johnson v. Monsanto Company" Kennedy was co-counsel at one of the two law firms involved in the case.
 2017, Earth Justice Mountain Heroes
 2017, Foro La Region Award for "La Proteccion de los Recursos Naturales"
 2014, Stroud Award of Freshwater Excellence
 2009, Rolling Stone "100 Agents of Change"
 2008, USC Dornsife Sustainability Champion Award
 2008, Theodre Gordon Flyfishers Conservation Award
 2007, Vanity Fair "The Green Team"
 2005, William O. Douglas Award, on behalf of the Waterkeeper Alliance
 2003, Professional Resource Award, NY State Council of Trout Unlimited
 2001, Distinguished Service Award presented at Pace Law School's 25th Anniversary
 2001, Men's Journal "Heroes" Award
 2000, 12th Annual Manhattan Award
 2000, Jacques Sartisky Peace Award
 2000, New York State Champion of the Environment
 1999, Time "Heroes of the Planet"
 1998, William E. Ricker Resource Conservation Award
 1997, EPA Environmental Quality Award
 1997, The Brave 40 Award from NYC Department of Environmental Conservation
 1997, Thomas Berry Environmental Award, presented to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic
 1995, Green Star Award presented by the Environmental Action Coalition
 1991, Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Award

Note

References

Citations

External links

 Pace Law School Profile
 The Waterkeepers feature doccumentary (2000)

 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 2024 presidential exploratory committee: Team Kennedy

1954 births
Living people
20th-century American biographers
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American biographers
21st-century American lawyers
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American politicians
21st-century Roman Catholics
5G conspiracy theorists
Alumni of the London School of Economics
American anti-vaccination activists
American bloggers
American Book Award winners
American conspiracy theorists
American environmentalists
American environmental lawyers
American legal scholars
American male biographers
American male bloggers
American non-fiction environmental writers
American people convicted of drug offenses
American people of Irish descent
American political writers
American talk radio hosts
Autism pseudoscience
Catholics from New York (state)
COVID-19 conspiracy theorists
California Democrats
California Independents
Candidates in the 2024 United States presidential election
Environmental bloggers
Georgetown Preparatory School alumni
Harvard University alumni
HIV/AIDS denialists
Robert F
Liberal Catholicism
Massachusetts Independents
Natural Resources Defense Council people
New York (state) lawyers
New York County Assistant District Attorneys
Non-interventionism
Pace University faculty
Pace University School of Law alumni
People with dystonia
Prisoners and detainees of the United States federal government
Sidwell Friends School alumni
Thiomersal and vaccines
University of Virginia School of Law alumni
Writers from New York (state)
Writers from Washington, D.C.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.


The Silent Service: Action Stories of the Anzac Navy is a 1944 non-fiction book by Ion Idriess in collaboration with Torpedoman Tom Jones, a navy man of 17 years experience. It contains 54 different stories about the achievements of the Royal Australian Navy in World War II.

It includes accounts of the Battle of the River Plate, Battle of Dakar, sinking of the Richilieu, the Siege of Malta, the Battle of the Java Sea, the Battle of Cape Matapan and the Battle of the Coral Sea.

References

1944 non-fiction books
Australian non-fiction books
Books by Ion Idriess
Royal Australian Navy
Collaborative non-fiction books
Angus & Robertson books

The Silent Service (book)


The National Democratic Party (formerly the St. Maarten Liberation Movement or SLM) was a nationalist political party in Sint Maarten. Founded by Theophilus Priest, the party first contested national elections in 1999, but received only 7 votes, and failed to win a seat. They ran again in the 2003 receiving 41 votes, and again in the 2007 elections under the name Freedom Slate of the National Democratic Party, receiving 20 votes. The party did not contest any further elections.

References

Political parties in Sint Maarten

National Democratic Party (Sint Maarten)


Friedrich Adler (15 October 1827 – 15 September 1908) was a German architect and archaeologist.

After having studied at the Bauakademie (Academy of Architecture) in his native Berlin, he began teaching there in 1855, and was soon famous for building churches. In 1863, he was named a professor of architectural history at the academy.

Due to his profound knowledge of antique architecture, he took part of Ernst Curtius' archaeological expedition to Asia Minor.

He was part of the leading directory of the major excavations in Olympia (1874–81), and took part in the planning of the whole enterprise, which was at first scheduled to last no more than five years. At one point, he was even leader of the excavations.  He was also the editor, together with Ernst Curtius, of the publication of the excavations report.

Adler died in his home city of Berlin, aged 80.

Archaeological works (as co-editor, together with Ernst Curtius)
 "Olympia: die Ergebnisse der von dem Deutschen Reich veranstalteten Ausgrabung" (Olympia, Results of the Excavation). Tome I-V (1890–1897).
 "Olympia und Umgegend" (Olympia and its surroundings); (2 maps and a plan, drawn by Adler's son-in-law Wilhelm Dörpfeld and Johann August Kaupert; 1882).

Architectural works

Adler designed and built many structures, among them 300 churches, some villas, castles and manor houses, holiday resorts, urban residential buildings etc.
 Lutheran St. Peter's Church, Berlin, as master builder for Heinrich Strack as of 1850 (destroyed in WW II)
 Babelsberg Palace, Potsdam, as master builder for Heinrich Strack as of 1850
 Lutheran Village Church, Gräben, as architect, refurbish, as of 1855
 Lutheran Christ Church, Berlin, as architect between 1862 and 1865 (destroyed in WW II)
 Lutheran Saint Thomas Church (Berlin), as architect between 1865 and 1869 (severely damaged in WW II, rebuilt)
 Meyenburg Castle as architect, refurbished in 1865/1866
 Lutheran Christ and Garrison Church, Wilhelmshaven, as architect between 1869 and 1872 (severely damaged in WW II, rebuilt)
 Lutheran St. Peter's Church, Bromberg (today's Bydgoszcz), as architect between 1872 and 1878 (converted into Catholic Sts. Peter and Paul Church on 2 July 1945)
 Lutheran Redeemer Church, Jerusalem, as architect, built after his designs by his pupil Paul Ferdinand Groth between 1893 and 1898
 Lutheran St. James Church, Luckenwalde
 Lutheran Village Church, Atzendorf (a part of today's Staßfurt)
 Lutheran St. Nicholas Church, Frankfurt upon Oder, as architect he designed and added a new double-towered façade
 Lutheran Church, Schwetz (today's Świecie)
 Calvinist Church, Insterburg (today's Chernyakhovsk)
 Lutheran Castle Church of All Saints, Wittenberg, as architect he directed the intrusive renovation between 1883 and 1892
 Lutheran St. Peter's Cathedral, Schleswig, as architect he designed and added a new western main tower between 1888 and 1894
 Catholic St. Peter's Collegiate Church, Bad Wimpfen, as architect he renovated the church and designed and completed the unaccomplished towers between 1898 and 1902.

References

1827 births
1908 deaths
Architects from Berlin
19th-century German architects
Archaeologists from Berlin
Academic staff of the Technical University of Berlin

Friedrich Adler (architect)


Hemigomphus comitatus is a species of dragonfly of the family Gomphidae,
known as the zebra vicetail.
It is endemic to northern Queensland, Australia, where it inhabits streams and rivers.

Description
Hemigomphus comitatus is a small dragonfly with black and yellow markings. Its wingspan is 50-55mm and overall length is 40-45mm. The eyes of the adult are green and do not meet at the top of the head. The head of the female has a spine from the occiput just behind the eyes. The synthorax is strongly marked with black and yellow stripes, with the humeral stripe usually being continuous. A black mark along the suture of the synthorax is usually broken above and below the metastigma. The abdomen is black with prominent yellow bands, the appendages of the male are yellow and curve inwards at the tip. The wing margin at the base of the hindwing is folded in the male, but uniformly curved in the female.

Distribution
Hemigomphus comitatus has been recorded from near Mackay, Queensland to northern regions of Cape York Peninsula, usually along the coastal strip and nearby mountain ranges.

Habitat
Hemigomphus comitatus is known to inhabit streams and rivers, not necessarily in rainforest. The exemplar pictured here was found in suburban Cairns near a seasonal storm-water creek.

Gallery

See also
 List of Odonata species of Australia

References

Gomphidae
Odonata of Australia
Insects of Australia
Endemic fauna of Australia
Taxa named by Robert John Tillyard
Insects described in 1909

Hemigomphus comitatus


Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain () is a 1983 Hong Kong supernatural wuxia fantasy film directed by Tsui Hark and based on the xianxia novel Legend of the Swordsmen of the Mountains of Shu by Huanzhulouzhu. The film has been noted for combining elements of Hong Kong action cinema with special effects technology provided by a team of Western artists including Robert Blalack. It served as an influence for the 1986 American film Big Trouble in Little China.

Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain received five nominations at the 3rd Hong Kong Film Awards: Best Action Choreography for Corey Yuen, Best Actress for Brigitte Lin, Best Art Direction for William Chang, Best Film Editing for Peter Cheung, and Best Picture.

Premise
During the Sixteen Kingdoms period,  army deserter Dik Ming-kei, who was chased by vampires in the mountain of Zu, is rescued by Master Ding Yan and becomes his pupil. When they were ambushed by the Blood Devil, devil chaser Siu Yu and his pupil Yat Jan came to their assistance. They managed to hold off the Blood Devil but they need to find the Dual Swords to destroy it.

Master Ding took the wounded Siu Yu to Celestial Fort and sought help from the Mistress, but he was poisoned by the Blood Devil and he surrendered to the Dark Force. Will Ming-kei and Yat Jan find the Dual Swords and destroy the Blood Devil?

Cast
 Sammo Hung as Chang Mei, a Red Army soldier
 Yuen Biao as Di Ming-qi / Dik Ming-kei
 Adam Cheng as Ding Yin / Ding Yan
 Brigitte Lin as the Ice Queen
 Moon Lee as one of the Ice Queen's guards
 Judy Ongg as Lady Li I-chi
 Corey Yuen as Devil Disciple Leader
 Damian Lau as Xiao Ru / Siu Yu
 Mang Hoi as Yi Zhen / Yat Jan
 Norman Chui as the Heaven's Blade
 Chung Fat as a Blue Army Commander
 Dick Wei as a Blue Army Commander
 Ha Kwong-li as Ji Wu-shuang / Chi Wu-chuang
 Ka Lee as an Orange Army soldier
 Fung Hak-on as a Devil Disciple leader
 Yuen Miu as an Orange Army soldier
 Sai Gwa-Pau as the boatman
 Tsui Hark as a Blue Army soldier
 Jørn Bertram as the Doctor

Reception and influence
In a 1991 Fangoria article by Tim Paxton and Dave Todarello, Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain is referred to as "a film which freely intertwines Chinese myth and lore with Hollywood special FX and comic-book action. It's the proverbial rollercoaster of kung fu, magic, monsters, humor, tension, visual spectacle and gruesome bits."

Craig Lines of Den of Geek wrote that Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain "was a significant film for the Hong Kong 'New Wave' movement that revolutionized the industry in the late '70s", characterized by "young filmmakers [who] broke free from the traditional studio system to create weird, energetic and experimental movies". Lines praised the actors' performances and the martial arts choreography, and noted the film's "warm, full-hearted message of kindness and acceptance".

The film is considered an influence on John Carpenter's 1986 film Big Trouble in Little China.

Home media
The U.K. release of the DVD by Hong Kong Legends features an audio commentary with Tsui Hark and film critic Bey Logan.

The Hong Kong release of the DVD by Fortune Star Media features the Cantonese version of the film's trailer, as well as an interview with actor Yuen Biao.

References

External links

1983 films
1983 action films
1983 martial arts films
1980s fantasy adventure films
1980s supernatural films
Hong Kong New Wave films
Hong Kong action films
Hong Kong martial arts films
Hong Kong fantasy films
Wuxia films
Martial arts fantasy films
Films directed by Tsui Hark
Films set in Sichuan
Films set in the Jin dynasty (266–420)
Sixteen Kingdoms in fiction
1980s Hong Kong films

Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain


Robert William Holley (January 28, 1922 – February 11, 1993) was an American biochemist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968 (with Har Gobind Khorana and Marshall Warren Nirenberg) for describing the structure of alanine transfer RNA, linking DNA and protein synthesis.

Holley was born in Urbana, Illinois, and graduated from Urbana High School in 1938. He went on to study chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, graduating in 1942 and commencing his PhD studies in organic chemistry at Cornell University. During World War II Holley spent two years working under Professor Vincent du Vigneaud at Cornell University Medical College, where he was involved in the first chemical synthesis of penicillin. Holley completed his PhD studies in 1947.

Following his graduate studies Holley remained associated with Cornell. He became an assistant professor of organic chemistry in 1948, and was appointed as professor of biochemistry in 1962. He began his research on RNA after spending a year's sabbatical (1955–1956) studying with James F. Bonner at the California Institute of Technology.

Holley's research on RNA focused first on isolating transfer RNA (tRNA), and later on determining the sequence and structure of alanine tRNA, the molecule that incorporates the amino acid alanine into proteins. Holley's team of researchers determined the tRNA's structure by using two  ribonucleases to split the tRNA molecule into pieces. Each enzyme split the molecule at location points for specific nucleotides. By a process of "puzzling out" the structure of the pieces split by the two different enzymes, then comparing the pieces from both enzyme splits, the team eventually determined the entire structure of the molecule. The group of researchers include Elizabeth Beach Keller, who developed the cloverleaf model that describes transfer RNA, during the course of the research.

The structure was completed in 1964, and was a key discovery in explaining the synthesis of proteins from messenger RNA. It was also the first nucleotide sequence of a ribonucleic acid ever determined. Holley was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968 for this discovery, and Har Gobind Khorana and Marshall W. Nirenberg were also awarded the prize that year for contributions to the understanding of protein synthesis.

Using the Holley team's method, other scientists determined the structures of the remaining tRNA's. A few years later the method was modified to help track the sequence of nucleotides in various bacterial, plant, and human viruses.

In 1968 Holley became a resident fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California.

According to the New York Times obituary, "He was an avid outdoorsman and an amateur sculptor of bronze."

.

See also
 History of RNA biology
 List of RNA biologists

References

External links

1922 births
1993 deaths
Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine
American Nobel laureates
20th-century American biochemists
History of biotechnology
History of genetics
Weill Cornell Medical College alumni
People from Urbana, Illinois
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni
Recipients of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Salk Institute for Biological Studies people

Robert W. Holley


Gwardia Ludowa WRN was a leftist mainstream political organization; to learn more about the communist pro-Soviet formation see Gwardia Ludowa.

People's Guard WRN (; GL WRN) was a part of the Polish resistance movement in World War II. Created in 1939 by the WRN faction, since 1940 it was subordinated to ZWZ (name changed to Armia Krajowa (AK) in 1942) with a degree of autonomy.

In 1944 Gwardia Ludowa WRN numbered about 42,000 people. It was disbanded in early 1945.
Together with the Home Army or Armia Krajowa (AK) proper, the People's Guard "Freedom Equality Independence" did try, and on a small scale succeeded (some remote areas only), in providing the Polish citizens with the Polish Underground Police and court system independent from that of the Nazi German occupant. The civilian head of the Gwardia Ludowa WRN was Kazimierz Puzak.

References
 Gwardia Ludowa WRN on WIEM Encyklopedia

1939 establishments in Poland
1945 disestablishments in Poland
Military units and formations disestablished in 1945
Military units and formations of Poland in World War II
Polish Socialist Party
Polish underground organisations during World War II
World War II resistance movements

People's Guard WRN


Afrobeat is a Nigerian music genre that involves the combination of West African musical styles (such as traditional Yoruba and Igbo music and highlife) with American funk, jazz, and soul influences, with a focus on chanted vocals, complex intersecting rhythms, and percussion. The style was pioneered in the 1960s by Nigerian multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Fela Kuti, who is responsible for popularizing the style both within and outside Nigeria.

Distinct from Afrobeat is Afrobeats, a combination of sounds originating in West Africa in the 21st century, one that takes in diverse influences and is an eclectic combination of genres such as hip hop, house, jùjú, ndombolo, R&B and soca. The two genres, though often conflated, are not the same.

History

Afrobeat was developed in Nigeria in the late 1960s by Fela Kuti who, with drummer Tony Allen, experimented with different contemporary music of that time. Afrobeat was influenced by a variety of genres, such as highlife, fuji, and jùjú, as well as Yoruba vocal traditions, rhythm, and instruments. In the late 1950s, Kuti left Lagos to study abroad at the London School of Music where he took lessons in piano and percussion and was exposed to jazz . He then returned to Lagos and played a highlife-jazz hybrid, albeit, without commercial success.

In 1969, Kuti and his band went on a trip to the U.S. and met Sandra Smith, a singer and former Black Panther. Sandra Smith (now known as Sandra Izsadore or Sandra Akanke Isidore) introduced Kuti to many writings of activists such as Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis, Jesse Jackson, and his biggest influence of all, Malcolm X.

As Kuti was interested in African-American politics, Smith would make it his duty to inform Kuti of current events. In return, Kuti would fill her in on African culture. Since Kuti stayed at Smith's house and spent so much time with her, he started to re-evaluate his music genre. That was when Kuti realized that he was not playing African music. From that day forward, Kuti changed his sound and the message behind his music.

Upon arriving in Nigeria, Kuti had also changed the name of his group to "Africa '70". The new sound hailed from a club he established called the Afrika Shrine. The band maintained a five-year residency at the Afrika Shrine from 1970 to 1975 while Afrobeat thrived among Nigerian youth. Also influential was , a Nigerian musician touring from Paris, France, with his Matumbo orchestra in the 1970s.

The name was partially born out of an attempt to distinguish Fela Kuti's music from the soul music of American artists such as James Brown.

Prevalent in his and Lagbaja's music are native Nigerian harmonies and rhythms, taking different elements and combining, modernizing, and improvising upon them. Politics is essential to Afrobeat, due to Kuti using social criticism to pave the way for change. His message can be described as confrontational and controversial, which relates to the political climate of most of the African countries in the 1970s, many of which were dealing with political injustice and military corruption while recovering from the transition from colonial governments to self-determination. As the genre spread throughout the African continent, many bands took up the style. The recordings of these bands and their songs were rarely heard or exported outside the originating countries but many can now be found on compilation albums and CDs from specialist record shops.

Influence
Many jazz musicians have been attracted to the genre of Afrobeat. From Roy Ayers in the 1970s to Randy Weston in the 1990s, there have been collaborations that have resulted in albums such as Africa: Centre of the World by Roy Ayers, released on the Polydore label in 1981. In 1994, Branford Marsalis, the American jazz saxophonist, included samples of Fela's "Beasts of No Nation" on his Buckshot LeFonque album.

Afrobeat has also profoundly influenced various  contemporary producers and musicians, such as Brian Eno and David Byrne, who credit Fela Kuti as an essential influence. Both worked on Talking Heads' highly acclaimed 1980 album Remain in Light, which brought polyrhythmic Afrobeat influences to Western music. The new generation of DJs and musicians of the 2000s who have fallen in love with both Kuti's material and other rare releases have made compilations and remixes of these recordings, thus re-introducing the genre to new generations of listeners and fans of afropop and groove.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a small Afrobeat scene began in Brooklyn, New York, with projects including Antibalas, The Daktaris and the Kokolo Afrobeat Orchestra. Since then, other artists like Zongo Junction have come onto the scene. Many others have cited Afrobeat as an influence like Daptone Records-adjacent groups The Budos Band and El Michels Affair. The horn section of Antibalas have been guest musicians on TV on the Radio's highly acclaimed 2008 album Dear Science, as well as on British band Foals' 2008 album Antidotes. Further examples are Val Veneto, Radio Bantu, Tam Tam Afrobeat, Combo Makabro, Marabunta Orquesta, Minga!, Antropofonica, Guanabana Afrobeat Orquesta, El Gran Capitan, Morbo y Mambo, Luka Afrobeat Orquesta or NikiLauda. Some Afrobeat influence can also be found in the music of Vampire Weekend and Paul Simon. In 2020, Antibalas was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Global Music Album.

Afrobeat artists of the 2000s and present, continue to follow in the footsteps of Fela Kuti. Some examples of these artists are his sons Femi Kuti and Seun Kuti, Franck Biyong & Massak (from Cameroon), London Afrobeat Collective (from London, UK), Segun Damisa & the Afro-beat Crusaders, Shaolin Afronauts (from Adelaide, Australia), Newen Afrobeat (from Santiago, Chile), Eddy Taylor & the Heartphones (from Cologne, Germany), Bantucrew, the Albinoid Afrobeat Orchestra / Albinoid Sound System (from Strasbourg, France), Underground System / Underground System Afrobeat (from Brooklyn, New York), Abayomy Afrobeat Orquestra, Chicago Afrobeat Orchestra, Warsaw Afrobeat Orchestra, Karl Hector & the Malcouns (from Munich, Germany), Ojibo Afrobeat (from Vilnius, Lithuania), Afrodizz and Dele Sosimi and the ex-Africa '70 members Oghene Kologbo (guitar) with Afrobeat Academy, Nicholas Addo-Nettey (percussion), who is also known as , with Ridimtaksi (both based in Berlin, Germany). Namibian artist EES (Eric Sell) associates Afrobeat with reggae and kwaito.

In 2009, the music label Knitting Factory Records (KFR) produced the Broadway musical Fela! The story showcased Kuti's "courage and incredible musical mastery" along with the story of his life. The show had 11 Tony nominations, receiving three for Best Costumes, Best Sound and Best Choreography. Fela! was on Broadway for 15 months and was produced by notables such as Shawn "Jay-Z " Carter and Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith. Many celebrities were noted as attending the shows, including Denzel Washington, Madonna, Sting, Spike Lee (who saw it eight times), Kofi Annan, and Michelle Obama. Michelle Williams, former singer of girl group Destiny's Child, was cast as the role of Sandra Izsadore.

Fela Kuti's music has been sampled by various hip-hop musicians such as Missy Elliott, J. Cole, Kanye West, as well as other popular acts such as Beyoncé.

The "Festival de Afrobeat Independiente" (FAI) takes place regularly in Buenos Aires, where regional bands as well as renown Afrobeat acts perform.

See also
 Afrobeats
 Afroswing
 Confusion (album)
 Latin music (genre)

References

Further reading
 Afrobeat (BBC archived page)
 Fela Kuti coined Afrobeat in Accra out of hate for James Brown – Prof John Collins

20th-century music genres
21st-century music genres
African popular music
Nigerian styles of music
Jazz genres
Yoruba music
Funk genres
Music of the African diaspora
Fela Kuti

Afrobeat


An 1876 statue of Christopher Columbus by Emanuele Caroni is installed in Marconi Plaza, 2848 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (United States), inside a railing that bears wire art of Columbus's three ships, the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria.

Description and history

The Christopher Columbus Monument was originally erected on the Centennial Exposition grounds at the intersection of Fountain and Belmont Avenues, near the Conservatory and dedicated on October 13, 1876 as a tribute from Italy to America. The entire monument cost $18,000, was made of Italian Ravazzoni marble, and stands  from the ground, the statue of Columbus being  in height and the pedestal . The base is  long by  in width, and the weight is about . The figure represents Columbus, in the costume of his age and clime, standing on a ship's deck, near his feet being an anchor, coils of rope, and a sailor's dunnage bag; his right hand resting on a globe,  in diameter, with the New World outlined on the front face, and supported by a hexagonal column. His left is gracefully extended and holds a chart of what was once an unknown sea. The head of the statue is bare, and the physiognomy about as represented in the bust of the navigator at Genoa. On the front cap of the pedestal are the words "Presented to the city of Philadelphia by the Italian Societies". Beneath this is a medallion representing the landing of Columbus. On the opposite side of the cap is inscribed "Dedicated October 13, 1886, by the Christopher Columbus Monument Association, on the Anniversary of the Landing of Columbus, October 13, 1482". Underneath is the Genoese coat of arms and the words "In commemoration of the First Century of American Independence". On the remaining two sides of the pedestal are the coats of arms of Italy and the United States.

Antonio Isoleri, the second pastor of the first Italian church in the United States and the prototype for all Italian parishes in Philadelphia that came afterward, St. Mary Magdalen dePazzi, organized for the erection of this statue of Christopher Columbus, the first in Philadelphia, in Fairmount Park, and for a celebration. Isoleri, calling for unity among Italians in America utilized the explorer to provide people that were divided by their various regional ethnicities with a hero from a common heritage that generated shared pride.

On August 12, 2020, the Philadelphia Art Commission issued an order to remove the statue from Marconi Plaza and to place it in temporary storage. This followed an endorsement of a city proposal, two weeks prior, by the Philadelphia Historical Commission, to remove the statue, citing public safety and susceptibility of damage to the statue as a result of the George Floyd protests. A judge later halted the order, while a legal battle continues in the courts. Citing preservation of the statue pending a final decision, the City of Philadelphia had it boxed. On August 17, 2021 a judge from Philadelphia Common Pleas Court ruled the decision for removing the statue to be without legal merit, and on December 9, 2022, a ruling by the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ordered the plywood box enclosure to be removed.

See also

 List of monuments and memorials to Christopher Columbus

References

External links

1876 sculptures
Centennial Exposition
Italian-American culture in Philadelphia
Monuments and memorials in Pennsylvania
Monuments and memorials to Christopher Columbus
Outdoor sculptures in Philadelphia
Sculptures of men in Pennsylvania
Sculptures of ships
Philadelphia

Statue of Christopher Columbus (Philadelphia)


Preston Erwin Blair (October 24, 1908 – April 19, 1995) was an American character animator, best remembered for his work at Walt Disney Productions and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio.

A native of Redlands, California, Blair began his animation career in the early 1930s at the Romer Gray Studio, but due to the studio not keeping up with his salary, he moved to Walter Lantz Productions. He later moved over to Charles Mintz's Screen Gems studio, and in the late 1930s moved over to the Disney studio following numerous failed application attempts. At Disney, Blair animated cartoon short subjects, Mickey Mouse scenes in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" section of Fantasia (1940), and the hippo-alligator dance in Fantasia's "Dance of the Hours" sequence. He also did some work on Walt Disney's Pinocchio (1940) and Bambi (1942).

Blair left Disney after the 1941 Disney animator's strike, and was hired to work for Tex Avery's unit at MGM. There, he became particularly known for animating the titular female character in Red Hot Riding Hood. "Red" later re-appeared in more Avery cartoons, including Swing Shift Cinderella, Little Rural Riding Hood, Uncle Tom's Cabana and the Droopy cartoons The Shooting of Dan McGoo and Wild and Woolfy, with animation by Blair. In the late 1940s, Blair teamed with Avery animator Michael Lah to direct several Barney Bear cartoons, although their unit was dissolved after the completion of only three shorts.

Blair continued his career in animation into the 1960s, working on The Flintstones at Hanna-Barbera. He is better known, however, as an author of animation instructional books for Walter Foster Publishing. His first book, Animation, was published in 1948 and originally included images of the MGM & Disney cartoon characters he had animated, who were redrawn to obscure their origins in the second edition of the book. Blair would write many more animation how-to texts over the next forty years, culminating with Cartoon Animation (1994), a 224-page book which compiles most of the content from his previous books. A new edition of "Cartoon Animation" was published in November 2020 by Walter Foster Publishing, an imprint of The Quarto Group.

Preston Blair was the brother of artist Lee Everett Blair and the brother-in-law of artist and designer Mary Blair. He died on April 19, 1995.

References

External links

1908 births
1995 deaths
Animators from California
American animated film directors
Chouinard Art Institute alumni
People from Redlands, California
Walt Disney Animation Studios people
Hanna-Barbera people
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio people

Preston Blair