Tom Hayden: From Freedom Rider to Chicago Seven

The political turbulence of the 1960s has been well documented. and one name that appears prominently in that story is Tom Hayden.

One of the founders of the Students For a Democratic Society, Hayden was also a Freedom Rider in the south, fighting for civil rights, but also became one of the leading young voices against the Vietnam War.

Chicago Seven in 1970. Photo by Don Casper

In the historically tumultuous 1968, Hayden was among several high profile demonstrators at the notorious Democratic National Convention in Chicago. They were eventually brought to trial and became known as The Chicago Seven. Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin were also among them

Hayden was also married for many years to another high-profile anti-war activist, actress Jane Fonda.

In subsequent years, Hayden entered politics. He was elected to the California State Assembly and the California State Senate.

And in 1988, some 20 years after the Chicago Seven experience, Hayden wrote a memoir called Reunion. That’s when I met him.

So here now, from 1988, Tom Hayden.

Tom Hayden died in 2016. He was 76.

Dorothy Height

Photo by Adrian Hood

A decades-long tradition continues this summer, with the 35th annual Black Family Reunion this month.

The event was started in 1989 by Dorothy Height, the longtime president of the National Council of Negro Women. It grew quickly, attracting millions across the country.

And from the reunions grew the Black Family Reunion Cookbook, first published in 1992.

But as you’ll hear in a moment, the cookbook was more than just a collection of recipes. It was an oral history of the African-American family.

So here now, from 1993, Dorothy Height.

Dorothy Height died in 2010. She was 98.


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Myrlie Evers Williams

Photo by John Mathew Smith

Today, June 12, is a somber anniversary. It was 60 years ago tonight that a white supremacist and Ku Klux Klan leader gun down a civil rights leader named Medgar Evers as he arrived home.

His killer remained at large for years to come. And Evers’s death was just the first of three high profile assassinations that decade, including Malcolm x and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

His widow was Myrlie Evers. Years later she remarried and has been known since as Myrlie Evers Williams.

But she was always a strong woman.

I met her in 1999 when she wrote a book about her lifetime of triumph over tragedy, a book called Watch Me Fly.

So here now, from 1999, Myrlie Evers Williams.

Myrlie Evers Williams is 90 now, and still an active civil rights activist andleader.

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Lani Guinier

In 1993, the term “woke” had not been invented yet. But a prominent law professor nominated for a high position in the US government Saw her nomination done in by what we would now know as “anti-woke” sentiment.

Her name was Lani Guinier. President Bill Clinton nominated her to be assistant attorney general for civil rights.

That’s, of course, when closer scrutiny of her past writings began. And, she says, that’s when the misrepresentations of her writings began.

Guinier was a strong advocate of voting rights, and a strong believer that all minority voices should be heard in a democracy.

Ultimately, her voice was drowned out by her critics’ voices, and President Clinton withdrew her nomination.

I met her the following year, when she was on a book tour. So here now, from 1994, Lani Guinier.

Lani Guinier died last year. She was 71.


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Melba Patillo Beals

Photo: Ben Schumin

Imagine a small group of high school students needing armed United States military just to get into school.

In September 1957 9. African American students, the first to enroll at Central high School in Little Rock, Arkansas, were accompanied by armed national guard members

They became known as the Little Rock Nine.

Among them was 15-year-old Melba Patillo, later Melba Patillo Beals. Somehow, she and the rest of a little rock nine escaped any kind of serious physical harm.

I first met her in 1994, when she wrote a memoir of her experience called warriors. Don’t cry.

So here now, from 1994, Melba Patillo Beals.

Melba Patillo Beals is 80 now. She lives in the San Francisco Bay aea.


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William Kunstler

The New York Times once labeled William Kunstler “America’s most controversial lawyer.”

What earned him that distinction was his defense of the so-called “Chicago Seven,” a group of young radicals who tried to disrupt the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

But the Chicago Seven were hardly Kunstler’s most controversial clients. He also represented clients ranging from Jack Ruby to U.S. Marine and Russian spy Clayton Lonetree, to the man known as The Blind Sheikh, the man behind the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

I met William Kunstler in 1994, when he wrote his autobiography, a book titled My Life As a Radical Lawyer.

So here now, from 1994, William Kunstler.

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William kunstler died just a year after our interview, in 1995. He was 76.

Bobby Seale

55 years ago African Americans were making historic gains in civil rights. But much work was still to be done.

That year, 1966, Bobby Seale and his longtime friend Huey Newton created a new organization they called the Black Panther Party.

In 1968 Seal made a name for himself during anti-Vietnam War protests outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

It was not his first run-in with the law and it would not be his last.

In the early 1970s Seale wrote a book about the Black Panther Party, called Seize the Time. After going out of print for several years, it was republished in 1991. And that’s what I met him.

So here now, from 1991, Bobby Seale.

Bobby Seale is 84 now. Since 2013, Seale has been seeking to produce a screenplay he wrote based on Seize the Time.

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Carl T. Rowan

As a young journalist in the 1950s, Carl T. Rowan covered the emerging civil rights movement, and its leaders, including people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.

The reputation he built came to the attention of President John F. Kennedy, who, in 1961, name Rowan to a high level position in the State Department.

And in 1963, Kennedy appointed Rowan ambassador to Finland.

Row and remain in the government for three years after Kennedy’s assassination, before resuming what would be a long and acclaimed journalism career.

I first met him in 1991, what he wrote a memoir called Breaking Barriers.

In this interview, you’ll also hear a reference to “thje gun incident” — in 1988 Rowan confronted an intruder at his home, and shot and wounded him with what turned out to be an unregistered handgun.

So here now, from 1991, Carl T. Rowan.

Carl T, Rowan died in 2000, at age 75.

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Andrew Young

Was the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s a social or political movement? It was, but it was also a religious or spiritual movement, says former Congressman and UN Ambassador Andrew Young.

In a 1994 book called A Way Out of No Way, Young, a confidant of Martin Luther King jr., a former preacher, former Atlanta mayor, told his own story against the backdrop of the movement that he was a key part of.

So here now, from 1994, Andrew Young:

Ambassador Andrew Young will be 89 next month.

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