Matthew Maxwell Taylor "Max" Kennedy was born on January 11, 1965 in New York City, and baptized by Monsignor William McCormack in Manhattan's St. Patrick's Cathedral, in front of a crowd of 200 people. He is named after General Maxwell Taylor, then serving as the American Ambassador to Vietnam, who did not attend the baptism.
Early Life and Education[]
When Max was born his father, Robert F. Kennedy was a newly elected United States Senator for New York. In 1968, when Max was just three years old, his father decided to run for president. On June 6, 1968 after winning the California Democratic Primary, Robert F. Kennedy was shot and died shortly after. Max was very young when he and the rest of his family traveled back to New York for the funeral services. Six months later, Max's sister Rory was born. When Max and his cousin Edward Kennedy Jr. were children, their grandmother Rose would tell them the story of how their uncle, President John F. Kennedy, saved a member of his PT boat crew in World War II by towing him to an island. Max visited the Solomon Islands in 2002 with Robert Ballard to revisit the scene of the story of John F. Kennedy's PT-109. He presented a bust of the late president to Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, the native coastwatcher scouts who found the missing Kennedy and his crew.
Max attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. Then graduated from Harvard University where he majored in American history, he was also a member of the Spee Club during his years at Harvard, which was a Final Club.
Marriage and Family[]
Max married Victoria Anne Strauss, the granddaughter of Maurice "Moe" Strauss, on July 13, 1991 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Both he and his wife graduated in 1992 from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was elected President of the Student Legal Forum. Both his father and his uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy, had served as presidents of the Student Legal Forum during their respective times at the University of Virginia School of Law.
He and his wife Victoria have three children: Matthew Maxwell Taylor Kennedy, Jr., born September 18, 1993; Caroline Summer Rose Kennedy, born December 29, 1994; and Noah Isabella Rose Kennedy, born July 9, 1998, in Hyannis, Massachusetts.
Politics[]
Although Max has never run for public office, he has shown a consistent interest in public affairs, and has been involved in many campaigns, usually as a field organizer.
Max first began working as a field organizer for the first congressional campaign of Joseph Kennedy in 1986, where he organized wards in Allston and Brighton. Later, he managed the re-election campaign for Senator Edward M. Kennedy in 2000. Max Kennedy has volunteered on a number of other campaigns, including the presidential campaigns of Edward M. Kennedy in 1980; Michael Dukakis in 1988; Al Gore in 2000; John Kerry in 2004, and as a surrogate for Barack Obama in 2008.
In 2001 the Boston and New York media touted Max as a possible candidate for Massachusetts's 9th congressional district, a seat vacated by Democrat Joe Moakley. Max never declared his candidacy, citing his desire to spend time with his family, including his three children under the age of 10.
Max endorsed then-Senator Barack Obama early in the primary season, and campaigned for Senator Obama throughout 2008 at approximately 200 events in crucial swing states, including Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. In Scranton, Pennsylvania, he visited diners and doughnut shops at six A.M. and led senior citizens in singing old Irish ballads at lunch counters; Max campaigned in Indiana on Martin Luther King day and again during the Jefferson-Jackson dinner; he campaigned also across Texas from Austin to Dallas and Fort Worth through San Antonio. He phone-banked for Senator Obama and spoke at several Rock the Vote Bus Tour events. He also introduced Senator Obama at a dinner in Hickory Hill.
In October 2009, Max announced that he would be endorsing Alan Khazei in the special election to fill the US Senate seat of his late uncle, Ted Kennedy.
Civil, Human, and Environmental Rights Work[]
Max began his law career in July 1992 by serving for three years as an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia. He also served as a Director of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, and has led human rights missions to Haiti, South Africa, and Kenya.
Max co-founded the Urban Ecology Institute at Boston College – where he taught in the Biology and English Departments – with the goal of causing change through community action and education. In response to the considerable ecological and economic challenges in the city of Boston, the Urban Ecology Institute studies the emerging field of urban ecology to help residents understand the natural resources in their communities and take action to protect them.
An avid civil rights and environmental rights advocate, Max spoke at the Loyola Marymount University Bellarmine Forum in 2006 on the importance of urban ecology. Max claimed that the Jesuit colleges should be more involved in their local communities, and that scientists, educators and attorneys must work with middle- and high-school youth to improve science and civic education, and to protect and transform natural resources before they are lost forever. Max is also working with the Pearl Coalition to build a museum of remembrance and recognition of the greatest African American Slave escape in American History.
While at Georgetown University, Max concentrated on Latin-American history, and has made dozens of trips through Central and Latin America, spending time in nearly every country in South America. He joined a Venezuelan mapping team to attempt to create the first detailed maps of the upper reaches of the Rio Caroni. Max partially financed and produced two Venezuelan historical long featured films about Manuela Saenz in 2000 (lover of Simon Bolivar and Colonel in the Venezuelan Independence Army) and Francisco de Miranda in 2005 (Leader of Venezuelan Independence). His name appears on the credits of both films and other Venezuelan films to which he has contributed. Max has toured the Venezuelan Barrios, and was successfully involved in the fundraising of donations from the U.S. to the homeless children’s shelter run by Fundación Atenea in Caracas.
Max has had extensive meetings with Leopoldo Lopez, former Mayor of Chacao and with Henrique Capriles, former Mayor of Baruta and current Governor of the State of Miranda. For more than 15 years he has been a personal friend of Maria Corina Machado, the head of SUMATE (a Venezuelan NGO that promotes clean elections) and an individual who has been indicted by the Government under several criminal charges for that reason.
He is currently a research fellow at the John Carter Brown Library for Advanced Research in History and the Humanities at Brown University.
Max Kennedy - Interview at the Kennedy compound (E.T cover story)
Writing[]
Max wrote the national best-selling book titled Make Gentle the Life of This World : The Vision of Robert F. Kennedy and the Words That Inspired Him. He is also the author of Danger's Hour: The Story of the USS Bunker Hill and the Kamikaze Pilot Who Crippled Her, which was released by Simon & Schuster on Veterans Day (November 11, 2008). The book garnered praise from filmmaker Ken Burns, journalist Tom Brokaw, and historians Walter Isaacson, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Stanley Karnow.
Collaborating with Harvard documentary filmmaker Randolph Bell, he is writing, producing, and directing a documentary on the use of suicide as a weapon of war. His articles have appeared in DoubleTake Magazine, Conde Nast Traveller, and Escape.