Wearing a sun hat and a “Boycott Wendy’s” T-shirt and riding in a wheelchair, Ethel Kennedy could have been another protester in the crowd among those marching down Worth Avenue in Palm Beach.
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers first came to Palm Beach in 2016, at a time when Mrs. Kennedy already had more than a decade of advocating for the group and its Fair Food Program, which aims to improve working conditions and pay for farmworkers.
But few other participants attracted as much attention as Mrs. Kennedy, a part-time Palm Beach resident who knew many on the island, and beckoned those friends she passed to join the march.
She returned another two times to participate in the farmworkers’ demonstrations in Palm Beach, a dedication to the cause that was recalled fondly by coalition co-founder Lucas Benitez on Wednesday during Mrs. Kennedy’s memorial service at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C.
Mrs. Kennedy, the widow of former New York senator and Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Sr., died Oct. 10 at age 96 from complications from a recent stroke.
‘Who could say no to Ethel?’
The memorial service was attended by three presidents — President Joe Biden and former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton — along with former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and hundreds of dignitaries, friends and family members.
Among the crowd were Benitez and coalition co-founders Greg Asbed and Laura Germino. Benitez spoke to the crowd as Germino translated, and they were followed by Asbed.
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“My colleagues and I are here today from Florida, the land of swamps and hurricanes, in the company of so many distinguished champions of this great democracy, because Mrs. Kennedy knew it takes all of us, from farmworkers to presidents, to defend human rights that she held so dear,” Benitez said.
He described coming to the U.S. as a teenager, hoping to find work picking tomatoes and citrus. He found forced labor, sexual harassment and wage theft, prompting him to become involved in the drive to improve the lives of the people working around him under the hot sun every day, he said.
“Mrs. Kennedy, along with her daughter Kerry, stood with us from the very start,” Benitez said. “She saw the promise in our early efforts to bring brutal farm bosses to justice when no one else did.”
Benitez first met Mrs. Kennedy in 2003, when the Coalition of Immokalee Workers received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, granted by the foundation that Mrs. Kennedy created in honor of her husband following his death in the early morning hours of June 6, 1968, after being shot by an assassin following a presidential campaign event in Los Angeles.
For the next two decades, she protested, boycotted and advocated alongside and for the coalition, Benitez told the mourners gathered Wednesday.
He recalled pushing her wheelchair down Worth Avenue during a demonstration for the coalition’s Fair Food Program. They passed jewelry and fur stores, he said.
“Her friends and neighbors would stop her and they’d say, ‘Ethel, what in the world are you doing?’ ” Benitez said. “And she would say, ‘Come along, come along and march with us for justice and freedom.’ And many of them dropped whatever they were doing and they did.
“As President Obama said, ‘After all, who could say no to Ethel?’ ” Benitez quipped, recalling a comment that the former president made earlier in the service.
A longtime advocate for human rights
Following her husband’s assassination, Mrs. Kennedy dedicated her life to fighting for human rights.
In 2005, she put on a sun hat and Reebok sneakers to tour Immokalee, where she visited farmworkers and learned how they were trying to live while making just 45 cents per bucket of picked tomatoes.
A drive from Palm Beach to the rural agricultural community of Immokalee can take anywhere from two to three hours, depending on the route and traffic. The town’s name is from the Seminole word for “my home,” and there is a Seminole reservation there.
“What a tough life!” she told a Palm Beach Post reporter who accompanied her on the trip. “I mean, God, to get up at 4 in the morning and drive to the fields and then maybe get work or maybe not. And the living conditions! Like a barrio! You would hope that’s not what the United States is about.”
Benitez was her guide that day. He took her to the fields, down dusty dirt roads and to dilapidated living quarters where eight men were packed into a two-bedroom space.
No one there knew Mrs. Kennedy.
She continued to push for better wages for them, and within a month of that visit, she helped the coalition to accomplish one of its goals: to get the fast-food giant Yum! Brands to pay a penny more per pound for tomatoes.
“It gives them a much-needed boost, and it’s good to see Taco Bell taking a leadership role in corporate responsibility,” Mrs. Kennedy said at the time.
The next year, she was back in Immokalee, this time marching with coalition members to push for fair wages for farmworkers. She brought with her an important friend: John Sweeney, then-president of the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of unions in the U.S.
That was the kind of thing she did, Benitez said during the memorial service. She introduced the coalition to senators and other dignitaries as well. She elevated the farmworkers’ profile on an international stage.
‘That warmth of connection’
Speaking on Thursday with the Daily News via coalition team member and translator Marley Monacello, Benitez said he “felt that warmth of connection” with Mrs. Kennedy from the first time he shook her hand in 2003.
Asked what he felt it was about Mrs. Kennedy’s background that helped her to connect with farmworkers, Benitez said it was a combination of things, including Robert F. Kennedy Sr.’s advocacy work in the 1960s, a time of major transformation worldwide, and the Kennedy family’s own efforts to use their name, platform and power to raise up those around them.
“The entire Kennedy family has, in spite of how far they’ve come and the many generations that have passed, they’ve never forgotten where they come from,” Benitez said. “They’ve never forgotten their roots.”
An example of that, he said, was the location for the reception following Mrs. Kennedy’s memorial service: the Irish Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Speaking at Mrs. Kennedy’s memorial service was a great privilege, he said. “It was one of those moments that you never imagine happening,” Benitez said. “I never wanted the day to arrive when we had to say goodbye to not only an ally but a friend like Ethel.”
At the same time, he said, he and his colleagues felt profoundly honored to be able to speak and remember her while representing the coalition and farmworkers.
Benitez noted how remarkable it was that someone who herself never had a title or a political career was able to bring together so many key figures in American politics, history and culture.
“It was an incredible experience, and Ethel herself was such an incredible human being,” he said.
Kerry Kennedy continues to be involved with the coalition’s work, Benitez said.
“One of the things that struck me yesterday after the funeral Mass and after the reception, some of Kerry’s daughters and grandchildren came up to us and said, ‘Our grandmother may have passed away, but our family’s commitment to your movement and to your community doesn’t end there. We’ll be with you every step of the way. We hope you’ll continue to count on us to show up and to march alongside you,’ ” Benitez said on Thursday. “It was so beautiful to hear that from another generation of people, to the next generation.”
Benitez at the memorial service shared a sweet farewell to Mrs. Kennedy: “For all this, we want to thank you, and as we believe in Mexico, the country in which I was born, a person only truly died when they are no longer remembered by anyone,” he said. “So you, Señora Ethel, a true force of nature, will never really leave us. You will never really leave us because you will always live on in our hearts and in our memories in Immokalee and anywhere a farmworker harvests the food that feeds our nation.”
Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at [email protected]. Subscribe today to support our journalism.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: At memorial, Ethel Kennedy recalled as champion for Immokalee workers
