ROBERT F. KENNEDY’S FROZEN LEGACY
The legacy of Robert Francis Kennedy is bound to a combination of interacting forces that have in retrospect come to define the era of the 1960’s. The political and social dislocation that occurs in every decade was heightened by the medium of colour television and photography. However, the advanced technology alone does not constitute the only reason behind the frozen legacy of RFK. The 1960’s was an era that encompassed an ideology of new beginnings, reaching potential goals and changing the course of history. The nature of politics changed. It became infused with celebrity and the celebrity of the Kennedy dynasty was aligned alongside power, wealth and beauty. As the idealism of the 1960’s and the leaders people placed their hopes in succumbed to dramatic and tragic ends, the life they lived and a mythology of how they would have lived became frozen in the various television and photographic images left behind. Robert F. Kennedy’s legacy is tied up in the 1960’s atmosphere that has become cemented in the American psyche. Images are all that is left and it is through these images that the RFK legend was created and is sustained.
This site is designed to be an objective window into the life of Robert Kennedy. Although the photographs are accompanied by personal statements, it is ultimately up to the patron to view the various images and reach his / her own conclusion as to the power photographs have in creating and maintaining a positive legacy of RFK. It is aimed at having a minimal authoritative voice although it does primarily steer the patron to look beyond the simplicity of celebrity being the reason the RFK legacy survives. An assumed basic knowledge of who Robert Kennedy is and what he did is implied although not imperative.