By: Marc H. Morial
President and CEO
National Urban League
My introduction to Senator Edward Kennedy came in 1979, when as a 21 year old Senate intern I witnessed his spellbinding presentation before the Senate Finance Committee in support of one of his earliest proposals for national health coverage. I did not know it then, but over the years, as I watched Senator Kennedy's tireless advocacy for those who scripture calls, "the least among us," I came to understand why he was called "the Lion of the Senate."
During his 47 years in the Senate, no one roamed farther, fought harder or was a more fearless champion for the rights of everyday people than Ted Kennedy. From the bleak hills of Appalachia to the shanty towns of South Africa to the back streets of Boston, Senator Kennedy went wherever there was a need to support democracy's highest ideals of freedom and opportunity for all. Like his older brothers John and Bobby, he saw politics not as a game of self-interest and personal gain, but as an opportunity to improve the lives of those who are too often locked out and left behind, including workers, women, people of color, the poor and dispossessed, immigrants, children, and people with disabilities.
As one of the last U.S. Senators who fought for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he stood for many of the same rights the National Urban League fights for daily
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