http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/nyregion/09panel.html
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
Published: November 9, 2008
Nothing is more non-nonconformist than a nearly two-hour panel
discussion. But times have indeed changed, and the three former
political radicals who gathered for one on Saturday in Manhattan did
not seem to mind.
At a table in the Steven Kasher Gallery in Chelsea, Tom Hayden sat
next to Bernardine Dohrn. Next to her was Jamal Joseph.
Forty years ago, Mr. Hayden was a co-founder of Students for a
Democratic Society, a driving force behind the movement against the
Vietnam War. He was also a member of the Chicago Seven, who were
tried on charges of conspiring to incite a riot at the Democratic
National Convention in 1968. Ms. Dohrn was also a leader of S.D.S.,
and would later help form a violent splinter group called the Weather
Underground that bombed government buildings in the early 1970s. Mr.
Joseph was a young Black Panther in Harlem who went to prison in the
'80s for harboring a fugitive.
Today, Mr. Hayden, Ms. Dohrn and Mr. Joseph are lecturers, writers
and activists. On the Saturday after Election Day, they spoke softly
into their microphones and incited no riots among the small audience,
but their spirits were high. Though President-elect Barack Obama was
not a product of the antiwar movement 40 years ago, the panelists
described him as a benefactor of its transformations and predicted he
would be the inspiration for social movements.
Mr. Hayden, a former California state senator, said that young Obama
supporters "will determine the role of social activism for the next
30 years" and will be inspired by Mr. Obama to pursue community
organizing work instead of Wall Street jobs. "A community organizer
has been elected president of the United States," Mr. Hayden said.
Mr. Hayden, Ms. Dohrn and Mr. Joseph met at the gallery to discuss
the 1960s and the impact of an Obama presidency on the American
political left. Of all the radicals, however, the one who played the
biggest role in the presidential race, William Ayers, Ms. Dohrn's
husband, was not there.
Mr. Ayers, who also helped found the Weather Underground, is now a
professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Mr.
Obama's association with Mr. Ayers was a favorite target of criticism
by Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
Early on in the panel discussion, the moderator, Joshua Micah
Marshall, editor and publisher of the political blog Talking Points
Memo, asked Ms. Dohrn what it was like for her and her husband to
play cameo roles in the campaign.
She said they felt "tremendously lucky to have been together for
almost 40 years now." She added that they were still "proud
radicals," and were "definitively not now, or then, terrorists."
Of Mr. McCain's attempts to turn Mr. Obama's association with Mr.
Ayers into a political liability, she said: "It didn't work in this
campaign, if work means reaching independent voters, middle America,
thinking people." She added, "We're fine and really eager to resume
our normal lives."
Ms. Dohrn, a clinical associate professor at Northwestern University
Law School, teaches and writes about children's law and juvenile
justice. She and Mr. Ayers were indicted in 1970 for inciting to riot
and conspiracy to bomb government buildings, but charges were dropped
because of prosecutorial misconduct.
The discussion on Saturday was organized to promote an exhibition of
photographs by David Fenton, who chronicled street protests and the
lives of counterculture figures in the late 1960s and early '70s. The
exhibition, which runs until Nov. 26 at the Steven Kasher Gallery,
features more than 75 photographs of Columbia University protests,
Central Park be-ins and Black Panther demonstrations. Mr. Fenton went
on to become chief executive of Fenton Communications, which
represents the liberal antiwar group MoveOn.org.
Mr. Fenton, who also sat on the panel, said he had not seen Ms. Dohrn
since he photographed the Days of Rage protests in Chicago in 1969.
Mr. Fenton, 56, had dropped out of the Bronx High School of Science
in 1968 to pursue photojournalism. "There were demonstrations every
week," Mr. Fenton said. "I don't know if that will ever happen again.
I hope it doesn't have to."
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