B.J. HOLLARS
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Becoming Bobby Kennedy reveals a man whose vision for America remains as urgent and transformative today as it was half a century ago. 

While the broad strokes of Robert F. Kennedy’s life are well known—from presidential campaign manager to attorney general, senator, and presidential candidate—far less is understood about the deeper forces that shaped his extraordinary transformation. How did an entitled, silver-spooned prep school kid become a champion for the poor and oppressed?
Although his brother’s assassination in 1963 marked the turning point, it was Bobby’s own encounters with suffering and injustice that truly recalibrated his moral compass. From summiting Canada’s Mount Kennedy to speaking in apartheid-era South Africa, from descending into Chilean coal mines to navigating the piranha-infested waters of the Amazon, Kennedy sought to understand the lives of those the world ignored. His moral awakening continued closer to home—in the hunger-stricken shacks in the Mississippi Delta, the impoverished hills and hollers of eastern Kentucky, and the backroads of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
Kennedy’s final journey—his 1968 campaign for the presidency—cost him his life, but it also secured his legacy. Becoming Bobby Kennedy traces his remarkable evolution into a symbol of peace, justice, empathy, and moral courage, revealing a man whose vision for America remains as urgent and transformative today as it was half a century ago. In this intimate, character-driven retelling of Kennedy’s last six years, B.J. Hollars focuses on the experiences that fundamentally transformed the man Kennedy became in the final chapter of his life. Rare interviews and archival research provide new dimensions to this profile.
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Press & Praise 

Praise​
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"“With its creative and inviting approach, Becoming Bobby Kennedy brings a fresh perspective and new insights into Robert F. Kennedy’s life and the people and events who shaped him. In B.J. Hollars’s hands, the story of Kennedy’s life and work resonates in ways that are still sharply relevant today.”

—Ellen Meacham, journalist and author of
Delta Epiphany: Robert F. Kennedy in Mississippi

“President John F. Kennedy once observed that what made journalism and history so enthralling for readers came from the work required to answer an essential question: ‘What’s he like?’ In Becoming Bobby Kennedy, B.J. Hollars has deftly attempted to answer that question for a man who represented different things to different people. It is a fascinating journey, and Hollars is a first-rate guide.”

—Ray E. Boomhower, author of
Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary



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