BOSTON — From Berlin, where President John F. Kennedy’s words still echo, to Belfast, where the Kennedy family played a key role in brokering peace, to Cape Town, where Robert F. Kennedy made a historic speech, the Kennedy name is known the world over.
And yesterday the world mourned the loss of the last surviving son of an Irish-American family from Boston that suffered triumph and tragedy, sometimes scandal, and came to define American politics.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the last of the legendary political dynasty of brothers and one of the most effective legislators in recent history, died Tuesday night.
Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat who was known as the “lion” of liberalism, was 77 years old.
The death of Sen. Kennedy, who had been suffering from brain cancer, was announced by the family Wednesday morning from the family compound at Hyannis Port on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The news came even as the family was gathering to mourn the loss of the senator’s sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who died two weeks ago.
GlobalPost will be taking reports from around the world on the Kennedy legacy and GlobalPost Washington correspondent John Aloysius Farrell will be compiling a remembrance of the senator he covered and the legacy the Kennedy family leaves across the globe.
GroundTruth is written by Charles Sennott, the Executive Editor and co-founder of GlobalPost. The blog is a way for GlobalPost to let you know what our correspondents all over the world are covering every day. It is a place where Sennott highlights the best work in the field by a stellar team of correspondents . 