The world has lost a "tireless campaigner" for people with intellectual disabilities, said Britain's Daily Telegraph. Eunice Kennedy Shriver, a younger sister of the late president John F. Kennedy, died Tuesday at 88. The fifth of nine children born to Joseph and Rose Kennedy, Shriver organized the first Special Olympics in 1968. At the fifth Summer Games, in 1976, she told participants, ""What you are winning by your courageous efforts is far greater than any game. You are winning life itself."
Eunice Kennedy Shriver grew up in "a clan embraced as America's royalty," said Bryan Marquard in The Boston Globe. She stood out as the "most intellectually gifted" of Joe and Rose Kennedy's daughters—although they steered only their sons into politics. Her ambition, inspired by her developmentally disabled sister Rosemary Kennedy, helped her overcome "the constraints of her era, gender, and social strata," and she became an international leader "in the burgeoning movement to wrest mental retardation from the shadows of hushed conversations."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Two ancient cities have been discovered along the Silk RoadUnder the radar The discovery changed what was known about the old trade route
-
'People shouldn't have to share the road with impaired drivers'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Is academic freedom in peril?Today's Big Question Faculty punishments are on the rise
