There was humor and irony (Hayden had both in spades), eloquence and tears. In broken and halting English, she told me a story. In the course of preparing the memorial, I reread many of his books and speeches, watched films, news footage and interviews of Tom that Troy and Barbara assembled and read letters that friends and colleagues of his were sending in about the impact Tom had on their lives. Cesar thought for a few moments and then said, It only makes sense if you build a movement out of your campaign structure when its over.And that became CED: The California Campaign for Economic Democracy that got scores of progressives elected to state and local offices and many measures passed like Prop 65. Now is Tom Haydens momentand it always was. Several of the black students were fighting back tears; knowing the anger they must be feeling. He saw the real me.. His book Hell No: The Forgotten Power of the Vietnam Peace Movement, completed in the months before his death in October 2016, was published on January 31, 2017, by Yale University Press. "[27] Staughton Lynd, though, was critical of the Port Huron and New Left concept of "participatory democracy", stating: "We must recognize that when an organization grows to a certain size, consensus decision-making is no longer possible, and some form of representative government becomes necessary. To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page. He . Thank you. The statement advocated for participatory democracy and helped launch the student movement of the 1960s. Would love your thoughts, please comment. [44][45] He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica,[46] where he was the first interment in "Eternal Meadow," an eco-friendly section. But Humphrey and his chosen running mate, Ed Muskie, were anointed as the nominees by the Party's conservative establishment, who controlled most of the delegates. Forty years would pass before I would experience again the hope I had before August of 1968, before we would dance in the streets again, as so many did when Obama was elected. [18][19] Staughton Lynd later wrote that the New Left disavowed "the Anti-Communism of the previous generation", and that Lynd and Hayden had written, in Studies on the Left: "We refuse to be anti-Communist. A "military-industrial complex" of interlocking boards of directors containing the same elite players, dominated our politics as a "ruling class." A month later, a year that began with great hope, ended with little. While things were looking up, we had no idea of what to expect on the evening of March 31, when we gathered in the student union at the University of Wisconsin to watch a "special announcement" from the president. [36] He served on the advisory board of the Levantine Cultural Center, a nonprofit organization founded in Los Angeles in 2001 that champions cultural literacy about the Middle East and North Africa. Bonnie Raitt, a longtime friend and supporter of Toms, sangChange is Gonna Come.. Hayden also founded the Indochina Peace Campaign (IPC), which operated from 1972 to 1975. He was the author or editor of 19 books, including The Long Sixties: From 1960 to Barack Obama, Writings for a Democratic Society: The Tom Hayden Reader, and his memoir, Reunion, and served on the editorial board of The Nation. Bonnie: vocal, electric slide guitar James Hutch Hutchinson: bass Ricky Fataar: drums, percussion, backing vocal Glenn Patscha: rhodes piano, hammond B3, backing vocal Kenny Greenberg: electric guitar. Women and gays were protesting discrimination. Two of the most moving speeches were made by Alex Sanchez and DeWayne Holmes. The American response was to inflict horrible casualties on combatants and non-combatants alike. The fee has been established at several dozen colleges, and it may be used "to provide support for governmental affairs representatives of local or statewide student body organizations who may be stating their positions and viewpoints before city, county, and district governments, and before offices and agencies of state government". We delivered our message demand that Congress cut aid toour puppet regime in Saigonin union halls, churches, editorial boards, oncampuses,to crowds of sometimes 10,000 people. They have come back with a vengeance and a cruelty that makes Nixon seem benign by comparison. Speakers included well-known American radicals such as the Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver. Streamline your workflow with our best-in-class digital asset management system. John de Graaf, Outreach Director of The Happiness Initiative, has produced more than fifteen national PBS documentary specials and is the co-author of "Affluenza: How Overconsumption Is Killing Us--And How to Fight Back" (2014). The care received by Robert F. Kennedy after he was shot in the head 50 years ago this month was the best possible at the time, and his injuries were so severe that he'd still have a low chance of survival today, researchers say. While Hubert Humphrey's nomination was a foregone conclusion with Kennedy gone from the race, Eugene McCarthy still had considerable support for a floor fight. With his big victory in California, Kennedy would surely have sailed to the Democratic nomination and almost certainly defeated his Republican opponent. He didn't; in November, Hubert Humphrey lost by a whisker to Nixon. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, an old-liner, ran the convention with an iron fist. Even Tom Hayden, the SDS radical, was a pallbearer. In this deeply moving, visionary talk, he considers how a grassroots movement might overcome the most powerful empire in world history. [34] Student representation fees are used to support the operation of the Student Senate for California Community Colleges. Reporters covering the convention were roughed up by Daley's police. With his big victory in California, Kennedy would surely have sailed to the Democratic nomination and almost certainly defeated his Republican opponent. The omission wasnt an evasion; it was testimony to the man we came to remember and what he was about. He understood that progressives had to be prepared to take power and learn to govern, not just protestsomething else we would do well to think about for today. [31] Starting far behind, Hayden mounted a spirited campaign and finished a surprisingly close second in the Democratic primary. (Photo: Screenshot), The Year That Changed Everything: A Personal Memory of 1968. Kennedy's funeral seemed surreal. Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine, Vol. Section 76060.5 allows the establishment of "student representation fees" at colleges in the California Community Colleges System. Two months earlier, on the night of October 2, she and other Mexican university students had gathered in a great open space called the Plaza of the Three Cultures near the center of Mexico City. (1972), Introduction to the Enemy (1974), The China Syndrome (1979), Nine to Five (1980) and On Golden Pond (1981). Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images). [21] Six months after the convention, he and seven other protesters including Rennie Davis, He died in the bloody military coup that overthrew him on September 11, 1973. Kennedy's brother Edward eulogized him simply as a man who "saw wrong and tried to right it, saw pain and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it." Protestors gathered outside, some of them "Yippies" (for "Youth International Party") who had nominated a pig for President. [35] Hayden served as a member of the advisory board for the Progressive Democrats of America, an organization created to increase progressive political cooperation and influence within the Democratic Party. . It was from a prison cell in Albany, Georgia, where their ride was to land him, that Hayden began writing the SDS manifesto. The results would likely have been the same. I grew up in Los Angeles in a Quaker family, and for me being Quaker was a political calling rather than a religious one. Jane is an actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model and fitness guru. Polls began showing that a majority of voters opposed the war, and the victory of either McCarthy or Kennedy seemed almost inevitable. To Helstein's dismay, Alinsky dismissed Hayden's venture into the field as naive and doomed to failure. He told the Royce Hall crowd that his father liked Hayden a lot, seeing in him a kindred Irish spirit. Happily mingling in this congregation of joy: Onetime gang members (whose lives he had rescued and rearranged); his former students (ditto on the rearranged lives, maybe the same for the rescuing part); film and theatre people; academics and writers; political activists, including comrades from the Sixties and the California State Legislature, both; his family; and lots and lots of friends from many walks. On December 10, 1961, the Haydens participated in one of the many freedom rides taking place in response to the 1960 Boynton v. Virginia decision. Please read and accept our website Terms and Privacy Policy to post a comment. Raitt contributed to a new album, If You're Going To The City: A Tribute To Mose Allison, which celebrates the late singer and pianist, who famously blended the rough-edged blues of the Mississippi Delta with the 1950s jazz of New York City. But there were many others who still believed in the system and had worked hard for McCarthy or Kennedy. Billy Graham. Some of her friends were killed; she watched their blood darken the stones in the plaza before finally escaping the violence. [37] In that same year, he helped initiate Progressives for Obama (now called Progressive America Rising), a group of political progressives that provided assistance for Obama in his initial presidential campaign. Fonda recalled meeting Hayden at one of her slide presentations against the Vietnam War. He was a member of Calvary Baptist Church. CMT Crossroads Bonnie Raitt and Lyle Lovett The Factory Franklin TN, Chris Stapleton, Bonnie Raitt Helm B.B. Tom Hayden talks about creating social change as it happened in the 1960s and how it can happen today. [22], Hayden made several subsequent well-publicized visits to North Vietnam as well as Cambodia during America's involvement in the Vietnam War, which had expanded under President Richard M. Nixon to include the adjoining nations of Laos and Cambodia, although he did not accompany his future wife, actress Jane Fonda, on her especially controversial trip to Hanoi in the spring of 1972. I wanted to believe the words of the song were true, but I really didn't feel that way. He and Fonda later initiated the Campaign for Economic Democracy (CED), which formed a close alliance with then-Governor Jerry Brown and promoted solar energy, environmental protection and renters' rights policies, as well as candidates for local office throughout California, more than 50 of whom would go on to be elected. Those who spoke, led by his wife, Barbara Williams, covered the waterfront of a remarkable life: Tom Haydens achievements as a radical American reformer (in the words of his friend, Steve Wasserman); his contrarian nature, seen early on from Detroit and Ann Arbor days; his relentlessness and prescience, from his work in Georgia to Newark, Chicago to California; overall, his giftedness and singular voice all evoked with admiration and affection. I found it hard to concentrate on schoolwork the rest of that semester. [29] He also was revealed to have developed a friendship with Sen. Robert Kennedy, and served as one of the pallbearers for Kennedy's casket during Kennedy's funeral. But what I remember most from the conference was the small, sad-eyed young woman from Mexico that I also met there. Famed '60s anti-war activist Tom Hayden, whose name became forever linked with the celebrated Chicago 8 trial, Vietnam War protests and his ex-wife actress Jane Fonda, has died. Los Angeles, Downtown L.A stabbing sends six to hospital; 1 arrested, San Diego Roman Catholic diocese facing yet another lawsuit from its insurance company, K-Pop isnt the only hot ticket in Koreatown how trot is captivating immigrants, Los Angeles is suddenly awash in waterfalls, Officials unprepared for epic mountain blizzard, leaving many trapped and desperate. At the same time, most of these writers acknowledged that Soviet "socialism" was certainly no better, and probably even worse, than the corporate capitalism they challenged at home. Tears flowing. Congress to Cut Aid to Thieu. In Indianapolis, Bobby Kennedy braved an angry crowd to urge the non-violence that King had espoused. Refined and adopted at the first Students for Democratic Society (SDS) convention in June 1962, the Port Huron Statement called for a "new left" committed, in the spirit of participatory democracy, to "deliberativeness, honesty [and] reflection. Yes, our ground troops were coming home but the air war was beingescalated unbeknownst to most Americans and, in the south, our allies were imprisoning, torturing and corruptingVietnamese civilians in our name. What a soaring speaker Tom was. It was a profound departure from the doctrinaire, ideological view of the old Left and it brought hope and inspiration to a new generation of young activists who came together as SDS: Students for a Democratic Society. Then, we sat in stunned silence while Johnson announced his withdrawal from the race. He had a non-rhetorical way of putting big new ideas together so that people sawthemselvesin the narrative. It depicts their travels through North and South Vietnam in spring 1974.[24]. http://img.youtube.com/vi/coEzsUJYikM/0.jpg. The service opened with one civil rights march song, Keep Your Eyes on the Prize, and closed with another, Aint Nobody Going to Turn Me Around. Joining a four-person choir in the final number were singers Bonnie Raitt, Holly Near and Barbara Williams, Haydens wife, along with the couples son, Liam Hayden, and Haydens ex-wife, Jane Fonda. On Sunday Keep your eyes on the prize was a watchword, for few had done it better than he. He previously covered state and national politics, including the 2020 presidential campaign. Hes there with my father, and with Martin Luther King, and they are right now exhorting that when we leave this hall, we go out into the streets, and onto the barricades, and we fight to reclaim our country from these very, very bad people, Kennedy said to a round of applause. To watch the complete independent, weekday news hour, read the transcript, download the podcast, and for more information about Democracy Now!, please visit, http://img.youtube.com/vi/7tvnkvQ8Mtk/0.jpg. The chant Push that rock is realism for radicals and reformers today. Following Barbaras song, members of theFirst AME Choir Tom Morello, Holly Near, Bonnie Raitt and James McVay and myself joined Barbara on stage for a rendition of Aint Gonna Let Nobody Turn me Around, appropriately ending the memorial with everyone on their feet and singing along. The consolidation of the music business has made it difficult to encourage styles like the blues, all of which deserve to be celebrated as part of our most treasured national resources. These images, and the Tet Offensive, shocked many otherwise placid Americans and led to a shift in public opinion. [5] The Haydens divorced in 1965. One of Bobby Kennedy's qualities, or perhaps it was a quality of the times, was an easy and growing familiarity with the New Left. Renowned as his Sixties and Seventies exploits were, Tom Hayden was not a man of the past. I will always consider it an honor to have met him. There's a generation looking for a new beginning, And our sparkling eyes and songs prophesize, Are adding our bodies to the protest line. The result of this tour of North Vietnam, at a high point in the war, was a book titled The Other Side. Mostly, we felt fortunate for having known him. Soft-spoken and anything but radical, he impressed on us the necessity of cutting long hair and beards and putting on white shirts and ties to go "Clean for Gene" when we knocked on doors to get out the vote.