BOSTON (AP) — The U.S. Navy is naming a ship after Robert F. Kennedy.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus is officially announcing the name Tuesday at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. Members of the Kennedy family are expected to attend the ceremony.
The Robert F. Kennedy’s job will be to restock and refuel ships already at sea.
Ships in the class are being named in honor of civil and human rights heroes, and Mabus says the class would be incomplete without Kennedy’s name.
Kennedy served as U.S. attorney general from 1961 to 1964 and as a U.S. senator from New York from 1965 to 1968. He was assassinated in 1968.
Mabus chooses ship names to help connect people with the Navy and Marine Corps.
Construction is expected to begin in 2021.
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