Ethel Kennedy, a matriarch of America's most celebrated political family who carried on her husband Robert F. Kennedy's fight for civil justice after witnessing his assassination on the night he won the 1968 California Democratic presidential primary, has died at the age of 96.

"It is with our hearts full of love that we announce the passing of our amazing grandmother, Ethel Kennedy," former Rep. Joe Kennedy III, her grandson, announced Thursday. "She died this morning from complications related to a stroke suffered last week."

The mother of seven sons and four daughters -- including one she was pregnant with when her husband was killed -- Ethel Kennedy, who never remarried, raised her children to live up to the Kennedy creed touted by her murdered brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, that "to those who are given much much will be required."

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