Real musicians and real fans stay together for a long, long time. You watched them in the sky. The year began with great hopes that the seemingly endless war in Vietnam might end soon. At the end of the month, I was invited to attend an event called the Hemispheric Conference Against the War in Vietnam being held in the Canadian city of Montreal. 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. Most of the thousand or so gathered this past Sunday afternoon at UCLAs Royce Hall were grey( not greying) boomers, though a younger cohort also showed. Used by permission. Feel free to republish and share widely. The sense of satisfaction in recalling a life of consequence, together with others whod been there, was palpable. Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine, Vol. But none of the roughly 1,000 people who gathered to remember him doubted how vigorously he would have fought Trumps administration. Seize the time! 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. All rights reserved. Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Thomas Emmet "Tom" Hayden (December 11, 1939 October 23, 2016) was an American social and political activist, author and politician, who was director of the Peace and Justice Resource Center in Los Angeles County, California. With his big victory in California, Kennedy would surely have sailed to the Democratic nomination and almost certainly defeated his Republican opponent. There was a "light at the end of the tunnel," he said. Dave Dellinger, Abbie Hoffman, and Jerry Rubin were indicted on federal charges of conspiracy and incitement to riot as part of the "Chicago Eight", a.k.a. The most revered of the speakers was a man I'd never heard of until then. I Cant Make You Love Me : A 25th Anniversary Oral History, MUSICIANS ON MUSICIANS Bonnie Raitt & Brandi Carlile, Joan Baez and Bonnie Raitt Tree-Sit In Protest, Together we can make this a great community and make many new friends. ARLINGTON COUNTY, VA - JUNE 9: Pallbearers (including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., John Glenn, Douglas Dillon, LeMoyne Billings, Lord Harlech, James Whittaker, Steven Smith, David Hackett' Robert S. McNamara and Rafer Johnson) carry the coffin of Senator Robert Kennedy to the grave site at Arlington National Cemetery on June 9, 1968 in Arlington http://img.youtube.com/vi/coEzsUJYikM/0.jpg. Im whats known as a Cantorial Songleader. In the Three Cultures Plaza you gathered to meet. Hayden, she said, had been her teacher for 26 years. When Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, the senators family picked Tom Hayden to be an honorary pallbearer at the funeral because the young antiwar activist embodied the great hope that my father had in the future of our country, Robert Kennedy Jr. recalled Sunday night at a memorial for Hayden. Obituary. Those who didnt know him didnt really get it, but Hayden, though often accused of arrogance, didnt put on airs. Those who claim to care about marginalized voices have nothing to say about those who have no voice at all. Johnson had surrendered; the war would end. [34] Student representation fees are used to support the operation of the Student Senate for California Community Colleges. This is so much what Hayden was about, especially in his last years. SDS Founder, Tom Hayden on Participatory Democracy From Port Huron to Occupy Wall Street, http://img.youtube.com/vi/AJeAF3E2yl0/0.jpg, DemocracyNow.org We speak with Tom Hayden, principal author of the Port Huron statement 50 years ago, the founding document of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page. Stirred by her "ability to think morally [and] express herself poetically," Hayden soon followed her into the left-wing grouping. The war in Vietnam was described as an imperial venture fought for oil and other resources. I watched the news footage of Kennedy on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, bleeding to death. ARLINGTON COUNTY, VA - JUNE 9: Pallbearers (including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., John Glenn, Douglas Dillon, LeMoyne Billings, Lord Harlech, James Whittaker, Steven Smith, David Hackett' Robert S. McNamara and Rafer Johnson) carry the coffin of Senator Robert Kennedy to the grave site at Arlington National Cemetery on June 9, 1968 in Arlington County, Virginia. 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. (Photo: Screenshot). [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. Feldmans path to observance took many twists and turns. Bobby Kennedy was listening (and so too was Martin Luther King Jr.). Hayden was in Newark, working on an anti-poverty project, when the riots broke out in which 26 people were killed. As a member of the State Assembly, Hayden introduced the bill that became Chapter 1238 of the California Statutes of 1987. ", They released the doves to fly. Collect, curate and comment on your files. A month later, a year that began with great hope, ended with little. Hayden died on Sunday after a long illness, said his wife, Barbara Williams, noting that he suffered a stroke in 2015. http://img.youtube.com/vi/Z2Br1RWvYxg/0.jpg, Tom Hayden, a prominent leader of the 1960s anti-war and civil rights movements died Sunday at the age of 76. Millions of high-quality images, video, and music options are waiting for you. Direct to your inbox. 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. His new initiative is the Make America Beautiful Again campaign. Hayden is the director of the Peace and Justice Resource Center in California and is an outspoken critic of continuing global conflicts. 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. Hayden also founded the Indochina Peace Campaign (IPC), which operated from 1972 to 1975. 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. But for his hubris in persisting to escalate the Vietnam War, Johnson might have entered the history books as one of America's greatest presidents, carried there by his commitment to civil rights and the elimination of poverty. Several of the black students were fighting back tears; knowing the anger they must be feeling. Music video by Bonnie Raitt performing Made Up Mind (Lyric Video). Other books documented the power of this elite over foreign policy, describing how the CIA had overthrown Arbenz in Guatemala, Mossadegh in Iran, and other elected leaders, to protect the profits of American corporations. Tom Hayden with his then-wife, Jane Fonda, and their son, Troy, Santa Monica, California. Even Tom Hayden, the SDS radical, was a pallbearer. I watched the news footage of Kennedy on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, bleeding to death. [2] His father was a former Marine who worked for Chrysler as an accountant and was also a violent alcoholic. I never saw Luz again after that night. It captures what so many felt: Ilearned so much more about the efforts and events that have shaped and changed the directions of so manythan I was conscious ofincluding those that have influenced and made possible my own courseI was awakened to such gratitude, and I found myself gaining inspiration and an inner charge to press forward with even more boldness. NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks to Bonnie Raitt about her friendship with the Mose Allison. We celebrated with pitchers of beer and drove back to Superior with headaches the next day, happy to have them. With his big victory in California, Kennedy would surely have sailed to the Democratic nomination and almost certainly defeated his Republican opponent. A powerful critic of Stalinism in Russia, Sakharov suggested a middle way between Communist dictatorships and capitalist inequality. When Robert Kennedy died, Tom Hayden, a romantic radical, and Mayor Richard Daley, a city machine boss, wept. Renowned as his Sixties and Seventies exploits were, Tom Hayden was not a man of the past. Luz, too, had watched it. When it was over, I felt a slow realization that the times we thought were changing would change glacially if at all. The next morning a hushed pall hovered over the university student union in Superior. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Jane is an actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model and fitness guru. I would watch the audience hanging on his words as he broke their hearts open and then filled them with hope and new understanding. At the National Student Association convention in Minneapolis in August 1960, Hayden witnessed a dramatic intervention by Sandra Cason. Thomas Emmet Hayden was born in Royal . He agitated and organized, even during the Obama presidency, for a coalition of the many and the diverse for a sharing of the promise of America. 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. In later years, he ran for political office numerous times, winning seats in both the California Assembly and California Senate. Now is Tom Haydens momentand it always was. He was married to actress and social activist Jane Fonda for 17 years, and was the father of actor Troy Garity. Tens of thousands of copies of the 25,000-word document were printed in booklet form. He previously covered state and national politics, including the 2020 presidential campaign. The SDS was the vanguard of the student unrest that characterized the decade of the 1960s. 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". The IPC, operating in Boston, New York, Detroit and Santa Clara, mobilized dissent against the Vietnam War and demanded unconditional amnesty for U.S. draft evaders, among other aims. You see,Tom wanted to win. William Hayden Kennedy (86) passed away Tuesday, January 26, 2021 at his home in Wheeler. Now, the leading living scion of one of America's most beloved political families was also hammering Johnson from the campaign trail. . He was married to Jane Fonda for 17 years, and is the father of actor Troy Garity. He had changed the lives of most present such was the power and personality of Tom Hayden. He believed in me, Sanchez told the audience as tears rolled down his cheeks. He and Williams adopted a son. That fall, my friends and I continued to organize vigils and protests. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, an old-liner, ran the convention with an iron fist. But despite the King tragedy, my overall mood remained hopeful. 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). Along with her son with Tom, Liam Hayden,Barbara ended the program by performing her song, Push That Rock. The Watergate scandal and the unraveling of the presidency gave decisive new leverage to Toms Congressional strategy and in the fall of 73 the IPC tour went out again with the same team plus 3-month-old Troy who slept in dresser drawers along the way. [citation needed], In 2016, Hayden ran to be one of California's representatives to the Democratic National Committee. The 1965 protest was the beginning of what historian Howard Zinn called the greatest antiwar movement the nation had ever experienced, a movement that played a critical part in bringing the war to an end. Speakers and performers at the 2015 conference included Julian Bond, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Daniel Ellsberg, Vivian Rothstein, Luis Rodriguez, Tom Hayden, former Congressmembers Ron Dellums, Pat Schroeder and Elizabeth Holtzman, Staughton Lynd, David Harris, Marilyn Webb, Rev. [29][30], During 1976, Hayden made a primary election challenge to California U.S. The author of Evolution of an Unorthodox Rabbi (Dundurn Press, 2015), hes writing a memoir of his activist days when Tom Hayden was his teacher. They're also joined by Amy Allison his daughter, who executive produced the album about selecting an unexpected list of artists to contribute songs to the album. Suddenly it was possible to believe again, but the forces of hate and greed did not go quietly into that magic night.