Known best for his major role as an anti-war, civil rights, and radical intellectual counterculture activist, Hayden was the former husband of actress Jane Fonda and the father of actor Troy Garity. It was held in a cavernous auditorium with perhaps a thousand people in attendance. With Johnson still on the ballot, McCarthy won an overwhelming victory in the Wisconsin primary. Tom Hayden, a 1960s anti-war activist whose name became forever linked with the celebrated Chicago 7 trial, Vietnam War protests and his ex-wife Jane Fonda, has died. 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. Thank you. Again, dont we need CEDs today-in every state? Troy, Barbara and I had the speakers arranged in chronological order so that one could see the entire sweep of Toms life as an organizer/strategist/movement builder/writer/journalist/State Senator. Tom Hayden, in full Thomas Emmet Hayden, (born December 11, 1939, Royal Oak, Michigan, U.S.died October 23, 2016, Santa Monica, California), American activist and author. There's a generation looking for a new beginning, And our sparkling eyes and songs prophesize, Are adding our bodies to the protest line. But he'd stuck with Johnson on the war. King Grammy Tribute, Jerry Garcia Band with Bonnie Raitt, Berkeley Greek 8.30.1987, Talking with Guitarist Songwriter Will McFarlane, Bonnie Raitt: The Rolling Stone Interview, Stephen Bruton one of Austins best guitar players passes away, https://lnk.to/somethingsgotaholdofmyheart. The statement advocated for participatory democracy and helped launch the student movement of the 1960s. 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. Johnson had surrendered; the war would end. And all across my country from Boston to Berkeley. It was a roller coaster year of emotional highs and lows, when unlikely dreams suddenly seemed possible, only to be dashed time and again. Communist Party USA and African Americans, World Socialist Party of the United States, Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, Individualist anarchism in the United States, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, U.S. National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, Student Senate for California Community Colleges, "Tom Hayden, preeminent 1960s political radical and antiwar protester, dies at 76", "Casey Hayden: Gender and the Origins of SNCC, SDS, and the Women's Liberation Movement", http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Manifestos/SDS_Port_Huron.html, https://womhist.alexanderstreet.com/SNCC/doc86A.htm, https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-tom-hayden-snap-story.html, "New Force on the Left: Tom Hayden and the Campaign Against Corporate America", "From Here to There: The Staughton Lynd Reader", "U.S. Study scores Chicago violence as "a police riot", "The Truth About My Trip To Hanoi - Jane Fonda", "Introduction to the Enemy (1974) Film: Vietnam Lesson:'Introduction to Enemy' From Jane Fonda", "Indochina Peace Campaign, Boston Office: Records, 1972-1975 | Joseph P. Healey Library", "IPC Films Production Company filmography", "Tom Hayden, counterculture icon, invites public to dig into his archives", "Activist, politician Tom Hayden is remembered at UCLA memorial", "How the late Tom Hayden went from a fiery activist to a progressive lawmaker", "An Endorsement of the Movement Barack Obama Leads", "Barack Is Our Best OptionAnd You're Needed Now! Hayden is the director of the Peace and Justice Resource Center in California and is an outspoken critic of continuing global conflicts. On Sunday Keep your eyes on the prize was a watchword, for few had done it better than he. There were people who were part of creating the seminal Port Huron Statement on which Tom was the lead writer and editor the document that laid out in beautiful, even soulful, language an entirely new vision of what a Democratic society would look like. (Photo: Screenshot). He can be reached through his website: www.johndegraaf.com. On April 2, I voted in my first election ever. After initially resisting widespread calls for him to run as a candidate in the 1968 election, Bobby finally announced his candidacy from the Caucus Room of the Old Senate Office building, the same place his late brother . During 2001, he unsuccessfully sought election to the Los Angeles City Council. Which is why, while we were gathered to memorialize him and his time is now gone, this was and is Tom Haydens moment. "Now don't disturb the Olympics," the imperial orders came. She was fighting hard to hold back tears as she told me her horrifying tale. Quite the contrary: His way, for example, was to slink around low to the ground, leprechaun-like, as his former wife Jane Fonda lovingly put it. 2022 Open Secret Music (ASCAP,) Lapiotrope Music (BMI) administered by Bluewater Music Services Corp. Used by permission. Their rhetoric was loudly anti-American and pro-socialist. 2022 Redwing Records, LLC. [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. He had a non-rhetorical way of putting big new ideas together so that people saw, I was with Tom when he visited Cesar Chavez to ask whether he should run for the U.S. Senate. 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. If the enemy was indeed mortally wounded, it could not have mounted so many attacks in so many places at once, often with the inside help of South Vietnamese Army soldiers thought loyal to the U.S. All rights reserved. Known best for his major role as an anti-war, civil rights, and radical intellectual counterculture activist, Hayden was the former husband of actress Jane Fonda and the father of actor Troy Garity. With the size of the crowd, it was difficult to flee. He had a non-rhetorical way of putting big new ideas together so that people sawthemselvesin the narrative. "The radical inside the system: Tom Hayden, protester-turned-politician, dies at 76.". While McCarthy was eloquent about the fiasco in Vietnam, Kennedy offered more hope of uniting the war protestors with union members, minorities and the poor. SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- 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,. I would watch the audience hanging on his words as he broke their hearts open and then filled them with hope and new understanding. He mounted a bid in the Democratic primary for California Governor during 1994 on the theme of campaign finance reform and ran for Mayor of Los Angeles in 1997, losing to incumbent Republican Richard Riordan. The sense of satisfaction in recalling a life of consequence, together with others whod been there, was palpable. Tom was our friend, and boy, could we use his voice right now, said Father Greg Boyle, the Homeboy Industries founder who worked with Hayden on efforts to rehabilitate gang members. He served as the editor for the school newspaper, and in his farewell column in the newspaper, he used the first letter of successive paragraphs to spell "Go to hell". It was from a prison cell in Albany, Georgia, where their ride was to land him, that Hayden began writing the SDS manifesto. I began door-belling for McCarthy shortly after Tet, in Superior, Wisconsin, an industrial port city, while I was attending Wisconsin State University there. Fifty years have passed since the one that changed everything for my generation, the crucial turning point when the promise of the 1960s turned to a defeat and despair that still weighs on our thoughts of what might have been. [1] Hayden attended a Catholic elementary school, where he read out loud to nuns and "learned to fear hell. A beautifully emotional Alfre Woodard read from Tom's memoir, Ed Begley spoke about Tom's commitment to the environment and how it changed his life, ending by saying that he named his daughter Hayden in Tom's honor. Political icon Tom Hayden delivers a rousing call to action based on a profound historical overview of the arc of justice and social movements. So, hope you like it ? He had changed the lives of most present such was the power and personality of Tom Hayden. Hayden was best known for his role as an anti-war, civil rights, and intellectual activist in the 1960s, authoring the Port Huron Statement and standing trial in the Chicago Seven case. But considering the alternative of a Nixon presidency, I still hoped Humphrey would prevail. I watched the news footage of Kennedy on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, bleeding to death. 1972), cert. He was a member of. Hayden was called to a meeting where, refusing any further concession, he clashed with Michael Harrington, as he later would with Irving Howe. 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. Hayden lived in Los Angeles beginning in 1971[42] and was married to his third wife, Barbara Williams, at the time of his death. In a lengthy account of the riots, Hayden was unblinking about the inevitable,. A few days later, the Democratic Convention began in Chicago. The comment form collects your name, email and content to allow us keep track of the comments placed on the website. 1443, 35 L.Ed.2d 706 (1973). John Moscowitz is rabbi emeritus, Holy Blossom Temple, Toronto. Among the most important progressive political figures of our era, he co-authored the historic SDS-founding Port Huron Statements in the early 1960s, was a defendant in the trial of the legendary Chicago Seven, and went on to serve as a California State Senator. Hayden was a teaching assistant at the University of Michigan Journalism Department in the early 1960s. Sam & Dave classic written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter. Jane Fonda, a supporter of the IPC, later turned this moniker into a name for her film production firm, IPC Films, which produced in whole or in part, movies and documentaries such as F.T.A. In this deeply moving, visionary talk, he considers how a grassroots movement might overcome the most powerful empire in world history. Snipers fired randomly into the crowd, killing hundreds of students and bystanders. Would love your thoughts, please comment. I will summarize some of what I said at the memorial because I think it speaks to what needs to happen today in this country: I spoke of my 17 years with Tom which began in 1972 when the peace movement was flagging after years of repression and sectarian divisiveness. Even Tom Hayden, the SDS radical, was a pallbearer. Organize, control, distribute and measure all of your digital content. Tom Hayden once said that whenever it looked like the progressive majority was coming to power in the 1960s, it was interrupted by killings, killings performed by unknown forces. Bonnies Pride and Joy is offering all Bonnie Raitt fans a place where you can meet each other to exchange photos, videos, read news and talk about her music and life. She recalled traveling to college campuses around the country with Hayden in the early 1970s in their campaign to end the war and the homes of activists who let them spend the night. They had marched there from several universities to protest the upcoming Olympic Games, which had displaced hundreds of poor Mexico City residents from their homes. "They killed Kennedy," he said. Bombing those fields took on a new meaning.. 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. First, Johnson declared a moratorium on bombing attacks on North Vietnam; the anti-war pressure was getting to him. 2, the anticipated newJohn Prinetribute record fromOh Boy Records, is out today. Section 76060.5 allows the establishment of "student representation fees" at colleges in the California Community Colleges System. 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. Tom had been able to see past their tattoos to who they really wereand made it possible for them to completely turn their lives around. argued that our democracy was largely an illusion. He traveled singing gospel music for 35+ years. This is what is needed instead of walls. Lets take those three simple words and embrace the future! [10], Convinced, in the words of the Statement, that students must "look outwards to the less exotic but more lasting struggles for justice," and with $5000 from United Automobile Workers, Hayden's first SDS initiative was the Economic Research and Action Project (ERAP). When Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, the senator's family picked Tom Hayden to be an honorary pallbearer at the funeral because the young antiwar activist embodied "the great hope. [40] He also claimed that he never endorsed Sanders and only supported his campaign with the hope that it would push Clinton's policies leftward. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Those who didnt know him didnt really get it, but Hayden, though often accused of arrogance, didnt put on airs. He had come to trust Bobby, despite the latter's wealth and establishment connections. Bonnie Raitt Wins Song of the Year for Just Like That at Grammy Awards.