As a Democratic senator and future presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy traveled to Mississippi in 1967 to expose a shocking problem: children starving.
During the trip, Kennedy met with a family in their windowless shack and spent several minutes trying to talk to their 2-year-old, but the girl wouldn’t respond. She was too hungry. Her mother explained they couldn’t afford food stamps, which back then had to be purchased before they could be redeemed for groceries.
“I saw conditions of extreme hunger,” Kennedy said after he returned to Washington. “I saw people who eat only one meal a day or one meal every two days.”
The senator’s visit spurred media attention and follow-up investigations, including a CBS broadcast that showed starving babies up close. Kennedy urged his fellow lawmakers to expand the Food Stamp Program. Within decades, starvation would be eradicated in the United States.
Now, with obesity more prevalent than hunger, Kennedy’s son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has taken a leading role advocating for the eradication of soda and sweets from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the Food Stamp Program’s successor. Kennedy has accused SNAP of literally “poisoning” children.
