Max Kennedy

Kennedy authored Make Gentle the Life of This World: The Vision of Robert F. Kennedy and the Words That Inspired Him. He is also the author of Danger's Hour: The Story of the USS Bunker Hill and the Kamikaze Pilot Who Crippled Her, which was released by Simon & Schuster on November 11, 2008.[7] The book garnered praise from filmmaker Ken Burns, journalist Tom Brokaw, and historians Walter Isaacson, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Stanley Karnow.

In collaboration with the Harvard documentary filmmaker Randolph Bell, he is writing, producing, and directing a documentary on the use of suicide as a weapon of war.

He has also written for DoubleTake Magazine, Conde Nast Traveller, and Escape Magazine.

Kennedy is working with the Pearl Coalition to build a museum in remembrance and recognition of the largest non-violent escape attempt by slaves in American history, the Pearl Incident.

As a director of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, Kennedy has led human rights missions in Haiti, South Africa, and Kenya.

Kennedy taught in the Biology and English Departments at Boston College, where he co-founded the Urban Ecology Institute, which aims to study the emerging field of urban ecology with the intention of encouraging community action and education about natural resources in communities.[8]

Kennedy spoke at the Loyola Marymount University Bellarmine Forum in 2006 on the importance of urban ecology, where he advocated for Jesuit colleges to be more involved in their local communities, and stated that scientists, educators and attorneys must work with middle and high-school youth to improve science and civic education in order to protect and conserve natural resources.

During his time at Georgetown University, Kennedy concentrated on Latin-American history, and has thus taken a number of trips through Central and Latin America, and has visited nearly every country in South America. He joined a Venezuelan mapping team to attempt to create the first detailed maps of the upper reaches of the Rio Caroni. Along with Barry Clifford, he has also co-led an expedition to locate the sunken French fleet of Admiral D`Estress off the Las Aves Archipelago of Venezuela, and participated in the subsequent filming of the BBC/Discovery Channel Documentary about the lost fleet.

In 2000, Max Kennedy partially financed and produced the Venezuelan historical feature films Lover of Simon Bolivar and Colonel in the Venezuelan Independence Army, and later financed Leader of Venezuelan Independence, a historical film about Francisco de Miranda, in 2005. His name appears on the credits of these films, and other Venezuelan films to which he has contributed.

Kennedy toured the Venezuelan Barrios, and was successfully involved in the fundraising of donations from the U.S. to the homeless children's shelter run by Fundación Atenea in Caracas.

Kennedy has met extensively with Leopoldo Lopez, former Mayor of Chacao, and Henrique Capriles, former Mayor of Baruta and current Governor of the State of Miranda. He has been a personal friend of Maria Corina Machado, who has been indicted by the Government under several criminal charges relating to her participation in Súmate, an NGO which monitors Venezuelan elections.

Kennedy worked as a research fellow at the John Carter Brown Library for Advanced Research in History and the Humanities at Brown University.

Although Kennedy has never run for public office, he has shown a consistent interest in public affairs, and has been involved in many campaigns, usually as a field organizer. Kennedy began working as a field organizer for the first congressional campaign of Joseph Patrick Kennedy II in 1986, where he organized wards in Allston and Brighton. In 2000, he managed the re-election campaign of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and has volunteered on a number of other political campaigns, including the presidential campaigns of Edward M. Kennedy in 1980; Michael Dukakis in 1988; Al Gore in 2000; John Kerry in 2004, and as a surrogate for Barack Obama in 2008.

In 2001, the Boston and New York media touted Kennedy as a possible candidate for Massachusetts's 9th congressional district, a seat vacated by Democrat Joe Moakley.[9] Kennedy never declared his candidacy, citing his desire to spend time with his family, including his three children under the age of 10.[10]

Maxwell Kennedy endorsed Senator Barack Obama early in the 2008 primary season,[11] and campaigned for Senator Obama throughout 2008 at approximately 200 events in crucial swing states, including Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. In Scranton, Pennsylvania, he visited diners and doughnut shops at 6 a.m., and led senior citizens in singing old Irish ballads at lunch centers;[12] he campaigned in Indiana on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and again during the Jefferson-Jackson dinner;[13] and campaigned across Texas, from Austin to Dallas, and Fort Worth through San Antonio. He has also phone-banked for Senator Obama[14] spoken at several Rock the Vote Bus Tour events,[15] and introduced Senator Obama at a dinner in Hickory Hill.[16]

In October 2009, Kennedy announced that he would be endorsing Alan Khazei in the special election to fill the US Senate seat of his late uncle, Ted Kennedy.[17]

Kennedy was nominated by President Obama to serve as a Member of the Board of the Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) on January 26, 2011. He was sworn into office by Elizabeth Littlefield, the President of OPIC in November 2011,[18] and received a Security Clearance. Kennedy served on the Board until January 2018.

Soon after, Kennedy and his wife Victoria moved to Chicago to work with his brother Chris Kennedy who was campaigning for Governor of Illinois.

Kennedy served as an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from July 1992–1995.

He works as counsel to the law firm of Strange and Butler LLP in Los Angeles, California.[19]