On July 10, 1921, Eunice Kennedy Shriver was born into a family that is the closest the United States has ever had to royalty. Inspired by her developmentally disabled sister’s plight, she would grow up to change the way the world viewed the mentally and physically challenged. In 1962, she founded Camp Shriver, an event on her Maryland farm that evolved into the Special Olympics in 1968. Fifty years later, nearly five million children and adults with intellectual disabilities have participated in the Special Olympics, which is active in more than 170 countries around the world.
Born in Brookline, MA, Shriver was the fifth of Rose and Joseph Kennedy’s nine children. Among her siblings were President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy. Shriver’s close relationship with her developmentally challenged sister, Rosemary, inspired her to become a social worker.
Armed with a degree in sociology from Stanford, Shriver became the director of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation, established in 1946 as a memorial to her oldest brother, who had been killed in World War II. The organization’s goals were to improve the treatment of the mentally challenged. In 1953, she married Robert Sargent Shriver Jr., a Yale University and Yale Law School graduate and former naval officer.
After the success of her 1962 Camp Shriver for intellectually disabled children on her Maryland farm, Shriver decided to host an even larger event. The first Special Olympics were held in Chicago, IL in 1968, where 1,000 contestants participated. Shriver addressed the Special Olympics athletes with the inspiring words: “In ancient Rome, the gladiators went into the arena with these words on their lips. ‘Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.'” Today, the games have become an international event held every two years and alternating between Summer and Winter.
Until her passing in 2009, Shriver continued to be a member of the Board of Directors for Special Olympics. Among her many lifetime honors was the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in 2002, she received the highest honor from the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the Theodore Roosevelt Award.