A. J. Muste | |
|---|---|
 Muste in Central Park, New York, late 1960s | |
| Born | Abraham Johannes Muste (1885-01-08)January 8, 1885 Zierikzee, Netherlands |
| Died | February 11, 1967(1967-02-11) (aged 82) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Citizenship | American (naturalized) |
| Education | Hope College (BA) New Brunswick Theological Seminary Union Theological Seminary (BDiv) |
| Spouse | Anna Huizenga |
| Children | 3 |
Abraham Johannes Muste (/ˈmʌsti/MUS-tee; January 8, 1885 – February 11, 1967) was a Dutch-born American clergyman and political activist. He is best remembered for his work in thelabor movement, thepacifist movement, theanti-war movement, and thecivil rights movement in the United States.
Muste was born on January 8, 1885, in the small port city ofZierikzee,Zeeland, in the southwesternNetherlands. His father, Martin Muste, was a coachman who drove for a family that was part of Zeeland's hereditary nobility.[1] With his economic prospects limited in the Netherlands, Martin decided to follow four brothers of his wife, Adriana, and emigrate to America. They made the trans-Atlantic trip asthird-class passengers in January 1891.[2]
Muste's mother became ill aboard ship and remained hospitalized for a month atEllis Island after the family's arrival.[3] Upon her recovery, the family headed west forGrand Rapids, Michigan, where Adriana's four brothers pursued a variety of small business ventures.[2]
The family attended services at the Grand RapidsDutch Reformed Church, aCalvinist congregation in which religious services were conducted inDutch. Its very existence was testimony to the number ofDutch immigrants in the area.[4] Dancing, the singing ofsecular music and the viewing ofdramatic performances were prohibited by the church assins.[5]
Members of the denomination tended to be of theworking class, like most other Dutch people in the area, who were regarded as a source of cheap labor in the years beforeWorld War I by the longer-established English-speaking population.[6] Muste later recalled that his fellow Dutch Reformed Church members were "allRepublicans and would no more have voted for aDemocrat than turned horse thief."[7]
Along with the rest of his family, he becamenaturalized as anAmerican citizen in 1896.[8] He was 11 years old at the time of his naturalization.
Muste attendedHope College inHolland, Michigan, just west of Grand Rapids, on the coast ofLake Michigan. He graduated in 1905 with abachelor's degree at age 20.[9] At Hope College, he was classvaledictorian, captain of the school'sbasketball team, and playedsecond base for thebaseball squad.[9]
After his graduation, Muste taughtLatin andGreek for the 1905–06 academic year at Northwestern Classical Academy (nowNorthwestern College) inOrange City, Iowa.[9]
In the fall of 1906, Muste went east toNew Brunswick, New Jersey, to attend the Theological Seminary of theReformed Church in America (now theNew Brunswick Theological Seminary). While there, Muste took courses inphilosophy atNew York University andColumbia University, attended lectures byWilliam James, and metJohn Dewey, who became a personal friend.[10] While he remained in training to become a minister of the Reformed Church, Muste seems to have begun to question the church's fundamental principles at that time.[10]
He graduated in June 1909 and married his sweetheart from his Hope College days, Anna Huizenga.[11] Muste then was appointed pastor of theFort Washington Collegiate Church in theWashington Heights neighborhood ofManhattan,New York City.[10] In his spare time, he used his new parish's proximity to the theologically liberalUnion Theological Seminary to take additional courses there.[10] He ultimately received aBachelor of Divinity from Union, graduatingmagna cum laude.[12]
Muste was influenced by the prevalent theology of thesocial gospel and began reading the ideas of various radical thinkers of the day. He voted forSocialist candidateEugene V. Debs forU.S. president in 1912.[13] Muste would later state that he never again voted for a Republican or Democrat for a major national or state office.[14]
Muste remained as pastor of the Fort Washington Collegiate Church on Washington Heights until 1914, when he became increasingly uncomfortable with the Reformed Church and left it.[15]
Thereafter, he became an independentCongregationalist minister and accepted a pastorate at the Central Congregational Church ofNewtonville, Massachusetts, in February 1915.
A committedpacifist, Muste joined theFellowship of Reconciliation shortly after its foundation in 1916.[8] He participated in a peace demonstration late in the summer of 1916, with US entry into theFirst World War looming and some parishioners withdrawing from his congregation.[16] Pressure began to build further over Muste's pacifist views in April 1917, when the United States formally declared war on theGerman andAustro-Hungarian Empires. After taking two months of vacation leave in the summer of 1917, he decided that the time had come to leave. In December 1917, he formally resigned his pastorate position.[17]
After his resignation, Muste did volunteer work for the Boston chapter of the newCivil Liberties Bureau, a legal-aid organization that defended both political and pacifist war resisters.[18]
Later in 1918, he moved toProvidence, Rhode Island, where he was enrolled as aReligious Society of Friends (Quaker) minister.[18] He received the use of a home and money for expenses in exchange for pastoral services.[18] An array of political publications was kept in a large room in the basement of the Providence Meeting House, and each Saturday, pacifists, radicals, and an eclectic mix of individuals gathered there to discuss issues of concern.[18]
Muste became involved intrade union activity in 1919, when he took an active part as a leader of a 16-week-long textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts.[19] Workers in the mills worked an average of 54 hours a week, at an average rate of just over 20 cents per hour, and were threatened with a loss of income by an uncompensated cut of working hours.[20] A demand grew among the millworkers for 54 hours of pay for the new working week of 48 hours.[20]
However, as most workers were new immigrants who spoke English poorly or not at all, they were without effective leadership to express their demands.[21] When dissident workers walked off the job in February 1919 only to be met by police truncheons on the picket line, Muste and two friends, also ministers, became involved.[22] He spoke to assembled workers, assured them that he would lend whatever help he could in raising money for the relief of strikers and their families, and was soon invited to become executive secretary of thead hoc strike committee that had been established by the still unorganized workers.[22] He became the spokesman for some 30,000 striking workers from more than 20 countries.[22] Himself pulled from the picket line as a strike leader, isolated, and clubbed by police, he was eventually deposited into a wagon and hauled to jail when he could no longer stand.[23] After a week behind bars, the case against Muste for allegedlydisturbing the peace was dismissed. More than 100 strikers were jailed but the strike continued.[24]
While the police anticipated more violence and even placedmachine guns at critical points along Lawrence's principal streets, Muste and the strike committee chosenonviolence.[25] He advised the striking textile workers to "smile as we pass the machine guns and the police."[26] Despite the efforts ofagents provocateurs, the strike remained peaceful.[25]
The strike was eventually settled after 16 weeks, after both sides neared exhaustion and became willing to compromise. The ultimate agreement called for a shortened working week, a 12% hike in hourly and piecework wages, and the recognition of shop grievance committees in all departments.[27]
While the Lawrence textile strike was going on, Muste traveled to New York City to attend a convention of trade union activists in the textile industry.[27] The gathering resulted in the formation of theAmalgamated Textile Workers of America (ATWU).[27] Based upon his prominence as the head of the Lawrence textile strike and shutdown, he was elected secretary of the new union.[27]
Muste would serve as head of the fledgling union for two years until he stepped down from his post in 1921.[19]
Upon leaving the ATWU, Muste became the first chairman of the faculty atBrookwood Labor College inKatonah, New York, where he remained from 1921 to 1933.[19] He cemented his reputation as a recognized leader of the American labor movement.[19]
In 1929, Muste attempted to organize radical unionists opposed to the passive policies ofAmerican Federation of Labor PresidentWilliam Green under the banner of the newConference for Progressive Labor Action (CPLA).[19]
Muste also was a member of theLeague for Independent Political Action (LIPA), a group of liberals and socialists that was headed by philosopherJohn Dewey and sought the establishment of a new labor-based third party. He resigned his position on the LIPA Executive Committee in December 1930 in protest over Dewey's appeal to US SenatorGeorge W. Norris ofNebraska to quit theRepublican Party to head the third-party movement.[28] Muste declared that any such movement must start from the bottom up by the action of organized workers if it was to survive and that it was "of the utmost importance to avoid every appearance of seeking messiahs who are to bring down a third party out of the political heavens."[28]
In 1933, Muste's CPLA took the step of establishing itself as the core of a new political organization, theAmerican Workers Party,[8] which was informally referred to as "Musteite" by its contemporaries.[8]
The AWP then merged with the TrotskyistCommunist League of America in 1934 to establish theWorkers Party of the United States. Muste meanwhile remained a labor activist and led the victorious ToledoAuto-Lite strike in 1934.[8]
In 1936, Muste resigned from the Workers Party and left socialist politics to return to his roots as aChristian pacifist.[8] He became director of the Presbyterian Labor Temple in New York City from 1937 to 1940 where he paid special attention to combating Marxism and to proclaiming Christianity as a revolutionary doctrine.[29] He also lectured at Union Theological Seminary andYale Divinity School.[30]
From 1940 to 1953, he was the executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation,[19] an influential Protestant pacifist organization, where he did antiwar work, advocated nonviolence within the Protestant ecumenical movement, and helped mentor a number of the future leaders of theCivil Rights Movement, includingBayard Rustin. Rustin, a close advisor ofMartin Luther King Jr., later claimed that he never made a difficult decision without talking about it first with Muste.[31]
Muste supported the presidential candidacies of Debs andRobert M. La Follette Sr. and also had close friendships with Dewey and socialist leaderNorman Thomas. Muste's support for civil liberties led him to opposeMcCarthyism during theCold War. That led to accusations of communism, although his writings after 1936 are deeply critical of communism.[citation needed]
In 1951, to protest the Cold War, he and 48 others filedThoreau's essayOn the Duty of Civil Disobedience instead of their1040 Forms.[32]
In 1956, he andDavid Dellinger foundedLiberation as a forum for the pacifist and antiwar left.[33]
In 1957, Muste headed a delegation of pacifist and democratic observers to the 16th National Convention of the Communist Party. He was also on the national committee of theWar Resisters League (WRL) and received its Peace Award in 1958. Always a creative activist, he led public opposition withDorothy Day to civil defense activities in New York City during the 1950s and 1960s.
At the end of his life, Muste took a leadership role in the movement against theVietnam War. According to legend, he stood outside theWhite House every night during the Vietnam War, holding a candle whether or not it was raining.[34] In fact, he worked many days and nights during the last two years of his life to build a coalition of antiwar groups, including theSpring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which organized massive protests against the war.
In 1966, Muste traveled with members of theCommittee for Non-Violent Action toSaigon andHanoi. He was arrested and deported fromSouth Vietnam but received a warm welcome inNorth Vietnam from its leaderHo Chi Minh.[citation needed]
Muste died February 11, 1967, at age 82.Norman Thomas remembered him as someone who made a "remarkable effort to show that pacifism was by no means passivism and that there could be such a thing as anon-violent social revolution."[35]
The A.J. Muste Memorial Institute was located at339 Lafayette Street inNew York City, the so-called "Peace Pentagon", until the building was sold in 2016 because it required prohibitively expensive structural repairs.[36] The Institute provides office space for various activist groups, which now reside at its new location at 168 Canal Street inChinatown.[36] Tenant organizations include theWar Resisters League and theSocialist Party USA.[36]
During a 1969 debate withWilliam F. Buckley Jr.,Noam Chomsky cited Muste as "someone who did take a very strong, and I think very honourable position" on opposingWorld War II.[37] Chomsky discusses Muste's legacy inAmerican Power and the New Mandarins.
The following selection of Muste's writings may be found inThe Essays of A. J. Muste, edited byNat Hentoff, The Bobbs-Merrill Company (1967).
Muste is played byBill Irwin in the 2023 biopic filmRustin.
