Courtesy of the North End Historical Society:
The Enduring Qualities: An Exploration of the Origins of the Fitzgerald and Kennedy Families in Boston, Saturday August 21, 2010
The Enduring Qualities: An Exploration of the Origins of the Fitzgerald and Kennedy Families in Boston, Saturday August 21, 2010
Ten days before his inauguration as president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy addressed a joint session of the Massachusetts House and Senate in which he discussed his journey to the White House and the “enduring qualities” of the state of his birth. Kennedy connected the story of Boston, Massachusetts to the larger history of the nation and in turn, the journey to the “high and lonely office.”
Join us in an exploration of the Kennedy and Fitzgerald families’ Boston roots. We’ll visit sites of identity, faith, and community in downtown Boston and the North End and consider questions of transition, permanence, and belonging: How did the Irish and Irish American experience inform their sense of selves? What role did religion and the power of American democracy have in shaping their character? How did the Kennedys and the Fitzgeralds view the communities that made up the city of Boston? How were they shaped by the communities they lived in and in turn how was the city transformed by them?
The tour will meet downtown at the Irish Famine Memorial (adjacent to Borders Bookshop and the Old South Meeting House on the corner of School St. and Washington St.) and will conclude at the Mother’s Walk on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway.
For more information or to make reservations please call 617.566.7937
