Tens of thousands mourn Ted Kennedy

For the second day, thousands of mourners converged on the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum on Friday to file past Kennedy's flag-draped casket.
 

Among the visitors was the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who said Kennedy helped change the country through his work for minorities, the disabled and the poor.

"As a rich person, no one reached back further for the poor or exalted them higher," Jackson said.

Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a longtime civil rights leader, noted Kennedy's substantial influence on the movement.

"He's one man that changed America forever," Lewis said. "He made America a better place .. . . Sen. Kennedy was our champion. He was our leader. He was our shepherd."

The Associated Press estimated that about 25,000 people filed past Kennedy's casket on Thursday, although other estimates ranged as high as 40,000. The library was supposed to close at 11 p.m., but the doors were left open until 2 a.m. on Friday. There was no immediate estimate of how many mourners passed by the casket on Friday.

Visiting hours ended shortly before 3 p.m., so preparations could be made for a private family service Friday evening.

As on Thursday, mourners at the JFK Library were greeted by members of the Kennedy family on Friday.  They included his daughter Kara Kennedy Allen, nephew Tim Shriver and 81-year-old Jean Kennedy Smith, the senator's sister and the last surviving Kennedy sibling, greeted visitors.

Smith, a former U.S. ambassador to Ireland, choked back tears. "This is a hard time for me," she said when asked to talk about her brother. She was joined briefly by her son, William Kennedy Smith.

"It's a wonderful tribute to Teddy and the lives that he touched," he said of the line of thousands.

A five-person military honor guard stood at attention around the casket in a high-ceilinged room with a spectacular view of Boston Harbor. Large photos greeted mourners on their way into the room, including one of Kennedy as a boy with his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, and a 1960s-era shot of Kennedy with his slain brothers, John and Robert.

About 100 members of the Massachusetts Legislature together paid their respects to Kennedy during the morning.

State police and the legislative sergeant at arms escorted the procession of lawmakers, led by Senate President Therese Murray and House Speaker Robert DeLeo, into the JFK Library.

The members of the House and Senate passed the flag-draped casket walking two-by-two.

Sen. Stephen Brewer, a Democrat from Barre, said thousands of people in public service have drawn their inspiration from the Kennedys.

Droves of national political leaders were expected at Kennedy's funeral on Saturday, including three of the four living former presidents and an estimated 40 members of the U.S. Senate.

While former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were planning to attend the service, Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, who is 85, telephoned Kennedy's widow to say that he would not be able to attend.

The library had been scheduled to open at 8 a.m., but opened early to accommodate the hundreds of people who had lined up well before then.

"I don't think we'll ever see the likes of him again," said Michelle Romano, 44, of Revere, who showed up with her mother at 7 a.m. to find a line already several hundred people long.

Her mother, Ginger Romano, 67, of Revere recalled running into Kennedy during the Blizzard of 1978, the massive snow storm that paralyzed the Boston area for several days.

As Romano was bringing bags of clothing, blankets and other supplies to Revere High School for people whose homes had been damaged or destroyed in the storm, she tripped over a snow bank. A pair of hands helped her to her feet. It was Kennedy, who had been walking behind her.

"He said to me 'What can I do to help you?"' she said. "Then he thanked me and my family."

Fred Foster, 51, of Boston's Brighton neighborhood said he was directly affected by Kennedy-sponsored legislation.

"A few years ago I was laid off and I continued to have my health insurance because of COBRA, and that's a direct result of what Sen. Kennedy did," he said, referring to the federal program that allows people to retain their former company's health benefits under some circumstances.

Vice President Joe Biden as well as Sens. John McCain, Orrin Hatch and Christopher Dodd were expected to speak at the Friday evening service, called a "celebration of life" by the Kennedy family.

A funeral Mass was scheduled at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica, better known as Mission Church, on Saturday. President Barack Obama was scheduled to deliver a eulogy.

Click here for more on the life of Senator Edward Kennedy.


(At left, Joe Kennedy arrives at the Kennedy compound Wednesday afternoon. Photo: WBZ's Carl Stevens).

As mourners stood in line for as long as four hours Thursday, members of the Kennedy family, including some grandchildren, came out and thanked them for coming.

"It's just absolutely overwhelming," said Vickie Kennedy, the senator's wife. "The love and support means so much to all of our family. It's very, very moving."

The public event followed a private Mass at the family compound in Hyannis Port, where the senator died of brain cancer Tuesday at age 77. The family watched as the casket was loaded into a hearse for the journey to Boston.

The late senator's loved ones -- including niece Caroline, daughter of former President John F. Kennedy, and son Patrick, a Rhode Island congressman -- arrived before noon for the private Mass.

As the motorcade pulled away, Patrick Kennedy sat near tears in the passenger seat of the hearse.

Watch more on the life of Senator Edward Kennedy.

The procession passed many landmarks that were significant to the senator and his family. They included St. Stephen's - where his mother, Rose, was baptized and her funeral Mass celebrated - and the building where he opened his first office as an assistant district attorney and where John Kennedy lived while running for Congress in 1946.

Kennedy was to be buried Saturday evening near his slain brothers - John and Robert - at Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia.

With Kennedy gone, longtime CBS Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer said Washington will never be the same. "Kennedy has been here so long and has been such a presence; it's hard to imagine the Senate or this city without him."

Ted Kennedy's eulogy for brother Bobby in 1968 could have been his own. He said Bobby was someone "who saw wrong and tried to right it, who saw suffering and tried to heal it, who saw war and tried to stop it." 

After he buried his brothers, it was Ted who stepped forward to shoulder the Kennedy political legacy.

From his earliest days in the Senate, Ted Kennedy took the familiar populist approach of his brothers, "as your democratic senator in Washington, I will vigorously support Medicare."  He then became a champion for social programs, “for all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die." The famed "dream shall never die" speech came as Kennedy fell short in his challenge for the presidency in 1980.

WBZ Senior Correspondent John Henning said it was a turning point.

"He could have walked away after losing to Jimmy Carter and said I'm getting out public life, they don't want me, but he just pulled up his britches, went back down to Washington and really started rockin and rolling and I think that's where he made his reputation, from that point on." Kennedy became what Henning calls a 'super senator...' an "impact player" for Massachusetts and a consensus builder in the Senate.

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The John F. Kennedy Museum

The JFK Museum in Hyannis

Kennedy was born in Boston on February 22, 1932.  He graduated from Milton Academy in 1950 and graduated Harvard in 1956 followed by the International Law School, The Hague, Holland in 1958.  A year later he graduated the University of Virginia Law School 1959.  He served in the Army from 1951 to 1953. 

In 1959, Kennedy was admitted to the Massachusetts bar and in 1961 was appointed assistant district attorney in Suffolk County. Kennedy entered politics was he was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate on November 6, 1962, to fill the vacancy caused by the 1960 resignation of his brother, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, for the term ending January 3, 1965. 

Kennedy held the seat ever since, winning elections in 1964, 1970, 1976, 1982, 1988, 1994, 2000 and 2006. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 1980.

His 1958 marriage to Joan Bennett Kennedy would later end in divorce. He and Joan separated in 1977, but his 1992 marriage to Victoria Reggie Kennedy stabilized his life.

He was seriously injured in an airplane crash in 1964 and suffered from back pain for the rest of his life as a result.

In1 969, a car Kennedy was driving ran off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island and plunged into the water, resulting in the death of passenger Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a suspended sentence.

Boston Globe Washington bureau chief Peter Canellos is the editor of the book "Last Lion:  The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy."  Among other things, the book examines Kennedy's failed presidential run in 1980.

Canellos told WBZ's Dan Rea that the senator's lukewarm feelings about the presidency were reflected in this halting response to a 'softball' question from CBS news correspondent Roger Mudd.

The senator spent the final year of his life using his famed political skills to push forward a longtime career goal: health care for all. Even with his health failing, Senator Kennedy remained a powerful political force. An example of that came last year at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.  Against doctors' orders, he made a powerful speech in support of then-Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

The senator’s death will lead to a scramble to succeed him.   State residents -- and their representatives in Washington -- are now challenged to quickly fill the void.   

Senator Ted Kennedy is survived his wife Vicki, and his children Kara Anne; Edward, Junior and Congressman Patrick Kennedy.  He was the youngest of Joe and Rose Kennedy’s nine children—and the only of their four sons to die of natural causes.