John F. Kennedy Statue

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born into a wealthy, well-connected Irish-Catholic family in Brookline, Massachusetts on May 29, 1917. His father, Joe Kennedy, had amassed a large fortune in banking, real estate, and stock market speculation. His mother, Rose (Fitzgerald) Kennedy, was the daughter of John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, a former mayor of Boston and member of the U.S. House of Representatives. The second of nine children, Kennedy graduated from Harvard in 1940. The following year, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served in the South Pacific during the final years of the Second World War. In early August 1943, a Japanese destroyer collided with and sank PT-109, a patrol torpedo boat commanded by Kennedy. Despite suffering significant injuries, he helped lead the survivors to safety. For his heroics, Kennedy received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. 

Following the war, Kennedy launched his political career, during which he never lost a race. In 1946, at the age of twenty-nine, he ran as a Democrat and won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Massachusetts’ Eleventh Congressional District. After serving three terms in the House, Kennedy ran for the U.S. Senate in 1952. In a relatively close election, he defeated popular Republican incumbent, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. The following year, the junior senator from Massachusetts married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. In the mid-1950s, while recovering from back surgery, Kennedy wrote Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1957. Three years later, he secured his party’s nomination for President of the United States. That November, Kennedy narrowly defeated Republican nominee, Vice President Richard Nixon. With his victory, he became the youngest man and the first Roman Catholic ever elected to our country’s highest office. 

The Cold War abroad and the civil rights movement at home dominated Kennedy’s presidency. In 1961, a CIA-orchestrated operation to oust communist dictator Fidel Castrol from Cuba, known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, ended in disaster. The following year, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war, but helped make possible the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963. At home, Kennedy put federal pressure on the University of Mississippi and the University of Alabama to admit African American students. In 1963, during a primetime address to the nation, he called for the passage of landmark civil rights legislation. The result would be the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed racial segregation in public places and racial discrimination in employment. On the afternoon of November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald while traveling in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. 

In 1983, two decades after Kennedy’s death, the Massachusetts legislature created a special commission to raise private funds for the erection of a memorial to the late president and Massachusetts native. The commission received sizeable donations from corporations in addition to nominal contributions from schoolchildren across the commonwealth. Dedicated on May 29, 1990, what would have been Kennedy’s seventy-third birthday, the larger-than-life-sized bronze statue depicts him in mid-stride with his left hand at his suit jacket pocket. Designed by artist Isabel McIvain, the sculpture rests on a low, two-tiered rectangular granite base. A crowd of 2,500 attended the unveiling ceremony in front of the Massachusetts State House’s West Wing entrance. Notable among those gathered were Jacqueline Onassis, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, and the commonwealth’s two U.S. senators, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. In October 2020, it was announced that the statue would be moved closer to Beacon Street so that the public can more easily view it. 

Doran, Sam. "Kennedy Statue on the Move 30 Years After its Unveiling." NBC Boston, October 22, 2020 <https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/kennedy-statue-on-the-move-30-years-after-its-unveiling/2216225/>.

Freidel, Frank and Hugh S. Sidey. The Presidents of the United States of America. Washington, DC: White House Historical Association, 2006.

"John F. Kennedy, (sculpture)." Art Inventories Catalog. Smithsonian American Art Museum. Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS). Web. 22 May 2021 <https://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=ariall&source=~!siartinventories&uri=full=3100001~!333467~!0#focus>.

Manchester, William. "John F. Kennedy." Encyclopædia Britannica. Web. 22 May 2021 <https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-F-Kennedy>.