Staughton Lynd | |
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| Born | (1929-11-22)November 22, 1929 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | November 17, 2022(2022-11-17) (aged 92) Warren, Ohio, U.S. |
| Education | |
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| Spouse | |
| Children | 3 |
| Parents | |
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Staughton Craig Lynd (November 22, 1929 – November 17, 2022) was an American political activist, author, and lawyer.[6] His involvement insocial justice causes brought him into contact with some of the nation's most influential activists, includingHoward Zinn,Tom Hayden,A. J. Muste, andDavid Dellinger.[7]
Lynd's contribution to the cause of social justice and the peace movement is chronicled in Carl Mirra's biography,The Admirable Radical: Staughton Lynd and Cold War Dissent, 1945–1970 (2010).
Lynd was one of two children born to the renowned sociologistsRobert Staughton Lynd andHelen Merrell Lynd, who authored the groundbreaking "Middletown" studies ofMuncie, Indiana, in the late 1920s and 1930s. Though the family lived in New York City, his mother elected to give birth at a hospital she preferred inPhiladelphia.[8] Lynd followed not only his parents' academic occupations, but also their strong left-wing beliefs. He was aconscientious objector who was assigned to a non-combatant position in the U.S. military, but amid theMcCarthy Era, he was dishonorably discharged after it was found that he had briefly affiliated with communist groups while an undergraduate atHarvard College.[8]
He went on to earn a doctorate in history atColumbia University and accepted a teaching position atSpelman College, inGeorgia, where he worked closely with historian and civil rights activistHoward Zinn.[8] When Zinn was fired from Spelman at the end of the 1962–63 academic year, Lynd protested. During the summer of 1964, Lynd served as director of theSNCC-organizedFreedom Schools of Mississippi. After accepting a position atYale University, Lynd relocated toNew England. In 1965 he gave lectures on 'The History of the American Left' at theFree University of New York.[9]
Lynd marriedAlice Niles in 1951. They had three children and remained married until his death.
On November 17, 2022, Staughton Lynd died from multiple organ failure at a hospital inWarren, Ohio. It was five days before his 93rd birthday.[8]
At Yale, Lynd became an outspoken opponent of theVietnam War.[7] His protest activities included speaking engagements, protest marches, and a controversial visit toHanoi along withHerbert Aptheker and Tom Hayden on a fact-finding trip in 1966, which made him unwelcome to the Yale administration.[8] As the protest movement grew increasingly violent, Lynd began to have misgivings about the direction it was taking, and found himself estranged from the movement.[10] As a self-described "social democraticpacifist" and "Marxist Existentialist Pacifist",[11] he became interested in the possibilities of local grass-roots organizing.[10] Lynd'sNew York Times obituary described his political influences as "drawing equal inspiration from Marxism, American abolitionism andQuaker pacifism".[8]
In 1967, Lynd signed a letter declaring his intention to refuse to pay taxes in protest against the Vietnam War, and urging other people to also take this stand.[12]
In 1968, Lynd publishedIntellectual Origins of American Radicalism. Although the book was praised byDavid Donald inCommentary magazine as "a major work in American intellectual history",[13] it came under severe criticism from then-Marxist professorEugene Genovese, writing in theNew York Review of Books. As a result of the negative review—combined with Lynd's controversial reputation as an anti-war activist who had traveled to North Vietnam with Tom Hayden—it was soon clear that Yale would deny Lynd tenure. After losing his post at Yale, he became unemployable in academia.[14][15]
Lynd relocated his family to Chicago. There, he struggled to make a living from community organizing. In 1968, he accepted a job fromSaul Alinsky as supervisor of the second phase of Alinsky'sIndustrial Areas Foundation (IAF) organizer training school.[16] Sociologist and Professor of American StudiesClément Petitjean writes of Lynd:
Although he was highly critical of Alinsky's politics, he needed a job at the time... Lynd started teaching courses on US workers' history but also on contemporary forms of collective action to the dozen or so individuals.[16]
While training an organizer in a field placement inGary, Indiana, Lynd saw an opportunity to continue a campaign he had been working on "targeting the fact that US Steel, which had one of its biggest steel making sites in Indiana, paid almost no taxes... But Alinsky and the organizer Lynd was supervising had different plans. Instead, the trainee 'tried to organize around the existence of a pornographic bookstore in Indiana, just next to Gary.'"[16] In May 1970, Lynd requested a leave of absence from IAF to return to his research in oral history; a year later, he left the training school. In a letter announcing his decision, he wrote: "[Saul and I] come out of quite different political and organizing backgrounds, and it is not surprising that sooner or later our paths would diverge."[17]
Meanwhile, he and his wife Alice embarked upon anoral history project dealing with the working class. The conclusions of this work, titledRank and File, inspired Lynd to study law in order to assist workers victimized by companies and left unprotected by bureaucratic labor unions. In 1973, he enrolled at theUniversity of Chicago law school, where he earned a degree in 1976.[8]
From there, the Lynds relocated toYoungstown, Ohio, in the heart of theRust Belt. Working first for the union-side labor law firm of Green, Schiavoni, Murphy & Haines, and then for Northeast Ohio Legal Services in Youngstown, he proved to be a vital participant in the late 1970s struggle to keep the Youngstownsteel mills open. He served as lead counsel for six local unions, several dozen individual steelworkers, and the Ecumenical Coalition of the Mahoning Valley which sought to reopen the mills under worker-community ownership. Despite the ultimate failure of those efforts, the Lynds continued organizing in the Youngstown-Warren area.[18] Staughton remained extremely active as an attorney, taking on a broad range of cases, including those concerning "chemically disabled" auto workers and retired steelworkers.[19][20]
His bookLucasville is an investigation into the events surrounding the 1993prison uprising atSouthern Ohio Correctional Facility, and voices serious concern over the integrity of legal proceedings subsequent to the event. A memoir of his and Alice's life, "Stepping Stones: Memoir of a Life Together," was released in January 2009.[4]
| External videos | |
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 'My Country Is the World' opposing the Vietnam War and Jim Crow onYouTube |
