Edward Kennedy, 1932-2009

We’ve been writing way too many of these memorial blog posts lately . . . Hugh Morton images of the “Lion of the Senate” are pretty few and far between, but there are some, mostly from the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach (see above).
I also found a few choice shots of Kennedy from the May 17, 1964 memorial for his brother, John Fitzgerald, held in UNC’s Kenan Stadium. The second image below shows Kennedy on stage with none other than Bill Friday. That’s Hugh Morton just visible at the right, so he could not have taken these photos. Wonder who did?

As I was preparing this blog post, I got the following email from library student assistant Kyla Sweet-Chavez:

Just thought you’d want to know that Morton saved the day today! UNC-TV was looking for some Ted Kennedy in NC footage, from a tribute service to JFK that the NC Film Board produced. Stephanie pulled the two copies from the collection and both were in pretty terrible shape, either no sound or lots of splices. I came up to work, saw what she was working on and remembered processing that film in the Morton collection. Pulled the film and lo and behold, it’s a really nice print with good color, sound and no splices. It’s been digitized to DigiBeta and is in the process of being sent off. Hurrah for Hugh and his collecting ways!

So, keep your eye out for that footage!

The “Stephanie” Kyla refers to above is the moving image archivist here in Wilson Library, and Kyla works for her — currently, on a project to process the Hugh Morton motion picture film. Kyla’s going to update us on that project in a separate blog post, coming very soon.

4 thoughts on “Edward Kennedy, 1932-2009”

  1. There is an Edward Kennedy image from the JFK Memorial at Kenan on page 22 of Hugh’s 1988 book, “Making A Difference in North Carolina.” Since there is no photo credit in the caption, I assume that one was taken by Morton. Also, Amazon lists a 12 page booklet titled “Hugh Morton’s Democratic Photo Album” from 1971. I’ve never seen the booklet, but there might be Ted Kennedy images in it.
    http://www.amazon.com/Hugh-Mortons-Democratic-photo-album/dp/B00072K4FW/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I2XAGICLO89SG5&colid=28HXH9Q9G1YOK

  2. Thanks, Jack, for mentioning Hugh Morton’s Democratic Photo Album. The North Carolina Collection has the book, but it is not in the online catalog. The call number is FCp329 M88h.

  3. When Gov. Sanford asked Hugh to chair the committee to raise North Carolina’s contribution to the Kennedy Library Hugh was willing to oblige because, as Hugh said  , “He took a bullet for us all.” He asked Billy Graham to speak and the event was held at Kenan Stadium. Racial tension was running high and when Hugh was given the choice of Bobby or Teddy he thought Teddy was less controversial, and he wasn’t after controversy. Rose Kennedy was also present. (How did that lady manage to be almost invisible for so many years?) Thanks to Billy Graham and a good committee ( Isn’t that Ed Rankin standing in the back? ) North Carolina raised more money for the Kennedy Library than any state but Massachusetts.
    I do not know who took this particular picture, but if it was Don Sturkey you have the photo in his file there in Chapel Hill.
    The things that I remember best is how young Mrs. Kennedy looked and how hot the day was, and how easy it was to talk to Billy, of whom I was in great awe. What a great gentleman he is!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *