The Admirable Radical: Staughton Lynd

Darkness in August

http://birnbaum.themorningnews.org/2010/08/05/darkness-in-august.php

8/5/10

More than a few people have expressed to me some inchoate feeling
that, yes, August is upon us. This seems to be an expression of
discomfort with the rapidity with which the current season is falling
away. And in my view, a minor symptom of a larger distemper which is,
perhaps, a basic constituent of our existence. I.e., difficulty with
managing time's passage.

Some 40-something years ago, as an arrogant and passionate foe of
American imperialism and a fierce demonstrator for racial equality, I
was part of a demonstration that sat in Roosevelt University
President Rolf Weil's office to protest the university's failure to
grant tenure to historian Staughton Lynd (son of sociologists Helen
and Robert Lynd of Middletown fame)­this was on the heels of the
university demurring to acquire the Roosevelt papers that historian
(and John Updike's roommate at Harvard) Christopher Lasch (The
Culture of Narcissism) wanted to bring to the university bearing that
president's name. Lasch then went across town (so to speak) to
Northwestern University, and the rest, of course, is history…

I, of course, digress. The occasion for this voyage in the way-back
machine is the publication of Adelphi University mentor Carl Mirra's
The Admirable Radical: Staughton Lynd and Cold War Dissent 1945-1970
(Kent University Press). From Howard Zinn's foreword:

This is but a brief account of Staughton Lynd's journey through
academia and the world, joining his intelligence to contribute to the
world wide struggle for peace and justice. He is a radical historian,
a radical lawyer, a radical citizen. I have admired him enormously
ever since I first met him…before he became my colleague at Spelman
College. He and Alice [Lynd's wife] are exemplars of strength and
gentleness in the quest for a better world. I am proud to call him my
friend and happy that he is now the subject of Carl Mirra's
biography. As one who entered the academic world after military
service, I feel a special affinity for someone like Carl Mirra who
has come to the academy after being trained as a marine. I admire his
moral courage for his refusal to fight in the First Gulf War. It
seems to me that he experience gives a special dimension to his
intellectual curiosity and his passionate interest in documenting
Staughton's life.

So much for the passage of time.

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