Robert F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Father and son sharing a name. Robert F. Kennedy — US senator and attorney general, brother of President John F. Kennedy — was born in 1925 in Brooklyn. Robert F. Kennedy Jr was born in 1954, became a lawyer and environmental campaigner, later an anti-vaccine activist and an independent presidential candidate. Both records carry Harvard and the University of Virginia School of Law, both men are lawyers, and both are listed with the Democratic Party.
How they met
By birth. The younger man's mother is Ethel Kennedy, the elder's wife; among Robert Sr's children he is listed alongside Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Joseph Kennedy II, David, Courtney and Michael. He grew up inside a clan where his father's elder brother was president and his father was walking the same road — attorney general, then senator.
The core tension
One name, one party on paper, the same universities — and diverging paths. The father remains a figure of post-war Democratic politics; the son entered it as an environmental lawyer, became known through an anti-vaccine campaign, and ran for president as an independent — around the very party both records list. Here the matching biographical lines read as contrast rather than continuation.
What connects them
- father:Robert F. Kennedy
- child:Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
