The son of the late Robert Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., wrote a journal during the year of 2001 and spoke of his true feelings on many important political figures, including Al Sharpton. Sharpton and Kennedy were both arrested in 2001 in Puerto Rico for trespassing during protests on Vieques, Puerto Rico, which the US Navy used as a test site for explosives.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote of Sharpton during his sentence that Sharpton gives Kennedy "the creeps." Furthermore, Kennedy said that Sharpton "has done more damage to the black cause than [segregationist Alabama Gov.] George Wallace. He has suffocated the decent black leaders in New York. His transparent venal blackmail and extortion schemes taint all black leadership." Moreover, Kennedy called Sharpton a "buffoon" and wrote of his "stench" from advocating for Tawana Brawley, an African-American woman from New York who falsely claimed that six white men raped her in 1987.