Tom Hayden has died, 76

Tom Hayden, 1939-2016

Just posted, Sunday night, at the LA Times:

Tom Hayden, a 1960s radical who was in the vanguard of the movement to stop the Vietnam War and became one of the nation’s best-known champions of liberal causes, has died in Santa Monica after a lengthy illness. He was 76.

Many readers here will recall Hayden’s activism against the Vietnam war, his prosecution during the 1969 “Chicago 7” trial, his marriage to Jane Fonda, and his service in the California Assembly and Senate — and those are just the highlights in a very eventful life.

A Michigan native, Hayden was a Freedom Rider in the early 60s, where he was beaten and arrested. He was also a founding member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), serving as the main author of the 1962 Port Huron Statement, an influential antiwar manifesto.

Tom Hayden was a radical thorn in the side of the powerful, especially corporations and politicians, and he was quite proud of the 22,000-page FBI file compiled on him. The Bureau tracked him for years because, according to their records, he was “an effective speaker who appeals to intellectual groups and has also worked with and supported the Negro people...”

The full Times story is worth a read, just to remind us of his many contributions to civil rights, peace, the environment, education and the democratic process. Tom Hayden was certainly an important liberal voice of my generation, but his agitation and politicking, most recently on behalf of Hillary Clinton, continued until the end. Condolences to his family, friends and the many lives he touched.

“The whole world is watching!”