A few weeks ago I joined Congressman and RFK Speak Truth To Power defender John Lewis as he returned to First Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, site of a brutal night in civil rights history. As Freedom Riders in 1961, Lewis and a dozen companions traveled by bus from Washington,...

Last week, Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) reintroduced the Safe Schools Improvement Act (SSIA), an act that would solidify the requirement for schools to address bullying and hold them accountable to collect data on the incidence and response. Federal bullying prevention legislation has been introduced every year since 2003, when Congresswoman...

Today, one of America's oldest and proudest employers is facing a scandal of epic proportion. With a history that stretches back even prior to our nation's independence, this organization has grown into a $550 billion enterprise, with a staff of 1.5 million spread across offices in 150 nations. It is...

In just two months, the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) is up for renewal. Javier Bardem and I have teamed up to raise awareness for the need to include a human rights mandate in MINURSO.

Please watch the video below, see...

When President Barack Obama took the ceremonial oath of office on Monday, he placed his right hand on both the Lincoln Bible and a Bible handed down across generations by the family of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was a remarkable tribute to two men whose stories of leadership...

Late last night, the National Rifle Association (NRA) released their long-awaited response to the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut that left 20 children and 6 school officials dead. As the nation's attention remains focused on the aftermath of this tragedy, many of us wondered how the NRA justified its silence. They...

Despite his civilian dress, there was no mistaking his role in the secret police when he reached into our Toyota to block the Nikon lens of my 17-year-old daughter Mariah. She was recording the beating of a woman by his colleagues, uniformed and not. Mariah's shutter was too fast for...

"Shut up, or we will send you home in pieces," read the note that arrived at the Network of Civil Human Rights Organizations of Guerrero. It was addressed to Mexican public interest attorney Vidulfo Rosales and signed by vigilantes who proudly called themselves, "The Law."

Rosales heads up the legal...

Forty-four years ago today we lost my father, Robert Kennedy. As we mark this anniversary, we also commemorate June 6 as the 46th anniversary of his historic speech at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, given under the shadow of Apartheid. Below is a description of the scene...

I met Mary on her first day at Putney, we were 15. The next weekend we hitch hiked to Boston to see my siblings Michael, Bobby, David, Courtney and Kathleen, and for the rest of her life, she spent nearly every weekend and vacation with our family. We were roommates...

It's an honor to spread the word that between now and May 17, more than one hundred leaders in politics, media, Hollywood, and sports are teaming up as part of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights' fifth annual online auction to support human rights...

The 1965 bullying incident at Michigan's elite Cranbrook School that came to light this week has kicked off a series of conversations about bullying and about the extent to which we should hold our nation's leaders accountable for past behavior.

But even after Mitt Romney's "If I...

China performs 13 million abortions a year. When Chen Guangcheng dared criticized the slaughter, the government of China threw him in prison for four long years. So, while the U.S. State Department and Chinese officials wrangle over Mr. Chen's fate, the larger questions concern the horrific contours of...

I spent yesterday morning in the library of Chicago's Lincoln Park High School, listening to students talk about what the word "hero" means to them. This wasn't any normal school day -- in a few moments they would meet Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the father of micro-lending and 2006 Nobel Peace...

Last weekend, my 14-year-old daughter, Michaela, and I were en route to Easter Sunday mass in Acapulco. We were stopped, harassed, threatened, and detained by eight soldiers in battle fatigues brandishing automatic weapons. At first, I was merely concerned; after all, we were traveling with RFK Human Rights Award Laureate...

RFK Speak Truth to Power Human Rights Defender Baltasar Garzon has made a career of fighting against the thugs of the world -- organized crime, terrorists, drug lords, death squads and perpetrators of crimes against humanity. In October 1988, he inspired a generation of human rights defenders when he indicted...

On Tuesday, Feb. 7, hours before the Ninth Circuit ruled "Prop 8" unconstitutional in the state of California, raucous cheers rang out in the Ugandan Parliament as legislators reintroduced a controversial bill that would in effect legislate hate against the Ugandan lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) community.

The...

In Christmas 2010, I took my three daughters -- Cara, Mariah and Michaela -- to Ecuador's Amazon to take part in a "Toxi-tour" and stand witness to what could be the worst environmental disaster on the planet. This is the awful mess that Chevron left behind at the headwaters...

The following remarks were made by Kerry Kennedy, President of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, at the 2011 RFK Human Rights Award, presented to the Ugandan activist for sexual minorities Frank Mugisha, in Washington, DC, on November 10.

The New York Times

Last night, Wangari Maathia, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, died. Most people think of Ms. Maathai as an environmentalist, planting trees. In reality, her environmental activism was part of a holistic approach to empowering women, advocating for democracy, and protecting the earth.

Wangari Maathai was...