How Special Olympics Started
Soon after President John F. Kennedy took office in 1961, his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver launched a crusade to change the way the world treated — or ignored — mental retardation. This re-education program gained credence as the Kennedys disclosed that one of their own, Rosemary Kennedy, had mental retardation.
Throughout the 1960s, Eunice Shriver’s commitment saw not only landmark legislation dealing with mental disabilities and disability rights, but was also instrumental in bringing mental retardation out of the darkness and into the light of public acceptance.
The genesis of Special Olympics was a summer day camp that Sargent and Eunice Shriver started in the backyard of their Maryland home. In July 1968, the world witnessed the first International Special Olympics Games at Soldier Field in Chicago. In December of that year, the Joseph P. Kennedy Foundation incorporated Special Olympics. Since then, Special Olympics has grown to become the largest program of its kind.