Tom Hayden was a leading theoretician and activist in the civil rights movement and in the anti-war movement against the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s. He died Sunday night.
His Port Huron statement was a powerful call to action.
His activism reminds us that regular citizens can stop a war, end injustice, and change the world.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hayden, individually, will be greatly missed.
The idealism and activism he passionately lived will always be a part of the character and identity of anyone who commit their lives to higher notions of fairness, justice and a loving humanity.
Thank you, Tom, for one glorious example of it.
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California has lost a hero.
He really was a political giant here and had a moral authority that broke through politics as usual. He came to speak a couple of years ago to a small group I belong to about environmental activism. I took copious notes because it was obvious that the understanding he generously shared with us was from a truly unique life experience. He explained that the neighbor-labor alliance could achieve great things. He gave us detailed advice and explained what a big impact political activism has in California because of our size and location. California, Washington and Oregon together can move the whole country. He repeated the joke he told at his son’s wedding, that a goal of his was “the peaceful, nonviolent disappearance of the white race”.
He will be sorely missed.
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Someone that states “the peaceful, nonviolent disappearance of the white race” does not come across as heroic to me.
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Duane,
As Italian-Americans, my family was for decades not considered “white,” as evidenced by a question a colleague once asked me: “Are your people from the part of Italy that’s really African, or are they from the part of Italy that’s really German?”
In the decades preceding that, the Irish were not considered “white” either (see Noel Ignatiev’s “How the Irish Became White” for some history on that). The same was often true for Jews until the post-WWII era. Both Jews and Italians were lynched in the pre-WWII South.
In this country, “Whiteness” is a fluid, socially-constructed mythology signaling privilege (relative or absolute) and used to devide and conquer working people, or as I once read, “In the USA, class often speaks in the language of race.”
If Tom Hayden was referring to the disappearance of that “white race,” rather than just people who are melanin-deficient then it’s fine by me.
RIP, fellow co-conspirator.
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Thanks for the explanation o to the term “white” and its historical meanings.
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Tom Hayden was a man of principle. We were of an age, we lived int he same community, and he was a role model for me. A few years ago I invited him to speak at a Colloquium at the university. When the ads went up, some people wanted to draw and quarter me for inviting “that Commie” to speak, but when the day came for his lecture, the large auditorium was packed…standing room only. Tom spoke that day of war, and of peace, but he had just finished another book on the subject, and it was very dark. He was not hopeful for humanity.
The next time I was with him was two summers ago, on the hottest summer day, way over 100, in the back yard of a mutual friend in the San Fernando Valley. It was a meeting of Progressive Democrats of America and Tom was the main speaker even though he was recovering from a stroke. He had aged in appearance dramatically and had many health problems…but he struggled to stand, not sit, and spoke to us for over an hour about the future of California, the US, and the world. Despite the sweltering heat, everyone leaned forward to hear his words and he was as urgent and demanding for justice as he had ever been.
I am so sad we lost this true man of conscience.
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FYI for those NOT in So. Califrornia…Geronimo, Karen, and I all live in the same area of LA. Although this seems a giant county in a giant state, Santa Monica and WLA is really a very tight knit community, and those of us who grew up, and grew old there, seem to all know each other, especially if we are lifelong progressives.
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Duane…anyone who does not follow politics carefully enough to know who Steve Bannon is, is not a person who I feel is qualified to be a critic of Tom Hayden, who some of us knew, respected, and cared bery much about on a personal level. Trying reading and studying his books and you might learn a great deal. He was a superb historian and political analyst.
The comments below just came from Progressive Democrats of America.
Saying Good-Bye To Our Dear Friend
Read this article online. Please share using this link.
Ellen —
Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) lost Tom Hayden, our dear friend, mentor, and one of our founding Advisory Board Members. During the early 1960s, Tom joined the struggle for voting rights in the Deep South, where he faced beatings. Later that decade, he helped lead the protest against the Vietnam War, becoming famous as an author of the Port Huron Statement and as one of the Chicago Eight.
Tom served as a State Senator and authored legislation on energy and other issues that helped forge California’s reputation for innovation and progressive leadership. He went on to write deeply thoughtful books, teach countless students about peace and justice, and relentlessly advocate for a better world for all. Even as his health failed him, he continued to lead the struggle. Now, even as we feel his loss, we must continue Tom’s work.
As PDA’s friend John Nichols of the Nation tweeted: “My dear comrades Tom Hayden and Tim Carpenter always raised the banner for peace. Now, we must raise it!”
PDA Advisory Board Chair Mimi Kennedy explained:
Tom had suffered another stroke Friday. And the doctors just couldn’t keep him alive, they said. He’d been hoping to hold on for this election. But he had done his part for this election early, stepping out with a brave letter that attracted much fury from many progressives, telling us that he was okay with Hillary.
From the Port Huron statement to his work on climate justice in the past years-“The Lost Gospel of the Earth” is a great, great book- his writing combined profound spirituality and sacred doubters’ faith with hard boiled political strategy and an undying passion for justice. He suffered, physically, in recent months. And now that’s over. If ever a man deserved a glorious reception where justice is honored and all things are known….
“Has anybody here seen my old friend Tom, can you tell me where he’s gone? I thought I saw him walking up over the hill, with Abraham, Martin and John.”
In closing, all I have to add is this: I guess we’ve entered that phase of our lives when we will say goodbye to many of our warriors for peace and justice. So, we pay tribute and keep organizing with young progressives, from among whom our new leaders are already emerging.
With a Heavy Heart,
Donna Smith for Mimi, Mike H, Judy, Mike F., Janis, Deb, Dan, Kim, Teva, Steve, Conor, Amos, and your whole Progressive Democrats of America Family
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Ellen,
I was not commenting on Hayden himself. I only know a little about him. My comment was meant to be a comment on using the term “heroic” (which I find to be consistently and wrongly overused by many). There is nothing heroic about someone wishing the demise of a group of people. And Hayden, as far as I can tell, never hinted that his words were “heroic”.
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If you read Tom’s writings, and if you knew him, you would understand he meant in time that all races would be blended into one race, the human race, and it would lead to a peaceful world.
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Wish that thought would be true. At the same time I’d like to see the day when race has been debunked as a human descriptor and that we all might view each individual as MLK suggested “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Personally I think that the homogenization of these supposed races would lead to a rather boring state of homo supposedly sapiens.
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His statement is still a very interesting and timely reading.
http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/huron.html
Here is what he writes about universities
There is, finally, the cumbersome academic bureaucracy extending throughout the academic as well as extracurricular structures, contributing to the sense of outer complexity and inner powerlessness that transforms so many students from honest searching to ratification of convention and, worse, to a numbness of present and future catastrophes. The size and financing systems of the university enhance the permanent trusteeship of the administrative bureaucracy, their power leading to a shift to the value standards of business and administrative mentality within the university. Huge foundations and other private financial interests shape under-financed colleges and universities, not only making them more commercial, but less disposed to diagnose society critically, less open to dissent. Many social and physical scientists, neglecting the liberating heritage of higher learning, develop “human relations” or morale-producing” techniques for the corporate economy, while others exercise their intellectual skills to accelerate the arms race.
So the problems we are facing are 50 years old.
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