Forever young: Staughton Lynd at 80

Forever young:
Staughton Lynd at 80

http://www.ctpost.com/opinion/article/Forever-young-Staughton-Lynd-at-80-623779.php

August 20, 2010
by Andy Piascik

Suddenly Staughton Lynd is all the rage. Again.

In the last 18 months, Lynd has published two new books, a third
that's a reprint of an earlier work, plus a memoir co-authored with
his wife, Alice. In addition, a portrait of his life as an activist
through 1970 by Carl Mirra of Adelphi University has been published,
with another book about his work after 1970 by Mark Weber of Kent
State University due soon.

In an epoch of imperial hubris and corporate class warfare on
steroids, the release of these books could hardly have come at a
better time. Soldier, coal miner, 60s veteran, recent graduate --
there's much to be gained from a study of Lynd's life and work. In so
doing, it's remarkable to discover how frequently he was in the right
place at the right time and, more importantly, on the right side.

Forty-six years ago, during the tumultuous summer of 1964, Lynd was
invited to coordinate the Freedom Schools established in Mississippi
by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The schools were an
integral part of the Herculean effort to end apartheid in the United
States and became models for alternative schools everywhere.

That August, Lynd stood with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
at the Democratic Party convention. Led by Fannie Lou Hamer, the
M.F.D.P. had earned the right to represent their state with their
blood and their remarkable courage. Instead the party hierarchy
supported the official, albeit illegal, delegation, a pathetic band
of reactionaries who -- the irony is too delicious -- supported not
Democrat Lyndon Johnson but his opponent, Republican Barry Goldwater,
for president. This back-stabbing was carried out by liberal icons
Hubert Humphrey, Walter Reuther and Walter Mondale and endorsed,
alas, by Martin Luther King.

In early 1965, Lynd spoke at Carnegie Hall in one of the first events
organized in opposition to the U.S. invasion of Vietnam. A short time
later, Students for a Democratic Society asked him to chair the first
national demonstration against the war, where he was again a keynote
speaker. That April 17, a crowd of 25,000 that was five times larger
than even the most optimistic organizers had anticipated turned out
in Washington, and what would become the largest anti-war movement in
U.S. history was born.

That summer, Lynd helped organize the Assembly of Unrepresented
People at which peace with the people of Vietnam was declared. It
proved prophetic, for in a few shorts years, a majority of people in
the U.S. had declared peace with Vietnam.

Lynd would continue as one of the seminal figures of the 1960s. He
was both a tireless organizer and the author of numerous articles in
important movement publications like Liberation, Radical America and
Studies on the Left. With co-author Michael Ferber, he documented the
movement against the military draft in The Resistance, one of the
best books about 60s organizing.

Lynd was an enthusiastic supporter of the New Left and embraced
precepts like participatory democracy and decentralization.
Ex-radicals of his generation like Irving Howe, Bayard Rustin and
Michael Harrington, by contrast, spent much of the 60s attacking
S.N.C.C. and S.D.S. Lynd spoke for many when he mocked their
enthusiasm for Johnson and the Democrats as "coalition with the
Marines." This, too, proved uncannily prophetic. Within a year of
being elected in 1964, Johnson (1) ordered a massive escalation in
Vietnam; (2) sent an invasion force to the Dominican Republic to
overthrow a democratically elected government; and (3) armed and
funded an incredibly violent military coup in Indonesia in which over
a million people were killed. The Peace Candidate indeed.

At the end of 1965, Lynd made a fateful trip to Hanoi, where he
witnessed the carnage inflicted by U.S. bombers. Up to that point, he
was one of the most promising new scholars in the country. Upon his
return, however, his career in academia was essentially at an end. A
tenure track position at Yale suddenly disappeared. Department heads
at other universities offered teaching positions, only to be
overruled by higher-ups.

Lynd never looked back. He became an accomplished scholar outside the
academy and one of the most perceptive and prolific chroniclers of
"history from below," with a special interest in working-class organizing.

Lynd moved to Ohio in 1976, became an attorney and, when the mills in
Youngstown began to close, assisted steelworkers in an unsuccessful
attempt to take them over. In a book he wrote about the effort, Lynd
explored the biggest little secret of all, one that people everywhere
would do well to heed: We who do the work can build a better world,
and we can best do it without the parasitic super-rich who contribute
nothing and weigh us down like a monstrous ball and chain.

Lynd is 80 now. The step is slower and his eyesight isn't the best.
Two years ago he had open-heart surgery -- "an affair of the heart,"
he calls it.

He talks of how deeply he misses dear friend Howard Zinn, who died
earlier this year. He talks of driving through Mississippi at night,
hopelessly lost, just days after civil rights workers James Chaney,
Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner had been abducted and murdered.
He talks of his remarkable life's work with great humility and not at
all wistfully, but in search of lessons it might hold, especially for
the young. A teacher extraordinaire, he is guided by the principle
that a teacher is also a student and all students teachers.

Lynd has seen more than his share of colleagues come and go. Some
flamed out after a brief period of frantic busyness; others moved on
to different lives and nice-paying gigs. Still going strong, Lynd
offers long distance running and accompaniment -- professionals using
their skills to assist workers and the unrepresented -- as
alternatives. He also believes as passionately as ever that a better
world is indeed possible.

.