In my short lifetime, I have never seen a politician speak in person more than I have seen Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

As a political science major at a college in Boston, witnessing a Ted Kennedy speech was almost a requirement for graduation. Remarkably though, for a man that was elected to the United States Senate a record nine times, none of the appearances I attended were ever on behalf of or in promotion of himself. As Vice President Joe Biden said this morning as he choked back tears, “unlike many important people in my 38 years I’ve had the privilege of knowing, the unique thing about Teddy was it was never about him.”

The first time I saw Ted Kennedy was at my alma mater Northeastern University where he gave a speech promoting higher education. I was crowded in the rear, by the door, and to my surprise, the Senator walked in the back way though the people instead of the taking the much easier route in the front. He was frail, as he was just getting over an illness, and much shorter in person than I would have guessed. He walked with a heavy limp, steadied by his cane, slowly and methodically to the front of the room. So slow in fact, I wondered whether he would ever make it to the stage. But as he drew closer, I saw there was no need to worry. You could see it in his face. His piercing, deep blue eyes conveyed a power and conviction that no television camera could ever capture; it was only something you could feel in person, standing next to him. And any lingering doubts completely ceased as soon as he spoke.

He had some prepared remarks on the podium in front of him, but he barely glanced them.  He also had a microphone, and though he was speaking before a hundred people or more, there was no need for it. His booming delivery carried throughout the room with such authority that you could hear a pin drop were he to pause mid sentence. He brought with him many charts and graphs explaining the positions he was advocating for, yet his voice gave more strength and power to his argument than any chart ever could. Everyone left that room that day with more than a lesson on education funding, they left in awe of his leadership and authority.

More than four years after I first heard him speak, I saw him for the last time in Hartford as part of his nationwide tour on behalf of the candidacy of Barack Obama. He was, of course, older then, and perhaps frailer looking than before, but his voice was even louder, more passionate, and more enthusiastic than it had been on that first day. As he left the stage to Obama to thundering applause, you could see the appreciation in the future President’s eyes, and perhaps a little wonderment. Could he–or anybody for that matter–ever do it better than Ted?

Longtime Democratic strategist Bob Shum remembers Kennedy’s ability and commitment to inspire a crowd.

…I saw it all again on that journey to Denver in 2008. He was taken to a hospital almost as soon as we arrived, was released and then was rushed back again. He was in agony — not from the cancer but from a sudden attack of kidney stones. He was determined to speak to the convention and left his hospital bed just a little more than an hour before his appearance, which much of the press and most delegates regarded as improbable or impossible. I stood and cried as he walked onto the stage. In 1980, he had gone there at the end of a long, hard quest through the primaries. This night was the expression of a lifetime’s undiminished commitment, the culmination of three weeks of drafting and daily practice sessions — we live only 25 minutes apart on Cape Cod — and then a harrowing day and a half in Denver. It was courage and conviction about the true purpose of politics that brought him to this moment. He spoke of economic justice, of equality, of health care as a fundamental right, of war and peace. He passed the torch to Barack Obama — to whose candidacy he had given a decisive endorsement the winter before. And he touched millions of hearts one more time: “The work begins anew, the hope rises again, and the dream lives on.”

But as many, including myself, remember the passion and eloquence with which Kennedy spoke, his enduring legacy has almost nothing to do with words, but with actions–achievements that are felt by every day, by every American, no matter their political affiliation. As Northeastern Journalism Professor Dan Kennedy so effectively put:

But what did Kennedy actually do? The answer: More than I can possibly detail here. He was the author of more than 2,500 bills and the driving force behind many of the most important liberal initiatives of the past 50 years. His biographer Adam Clymer wrote in 1999 that Kennedy “deserves recognition not just as the leading senator of his time, but as one of the greats in its history.”

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer