Remembering Staughton Lynd. The Green & Red Interview [2020] Encore (G&R 195)

Green & Red: Podcasts for Scrappy Radicals

One of the eminent intellectuals/activists of our time, Staughton Lynd, died yesterday, and Scott and Bob paid tribute to him as the introduction to a reprise of his 2020 interview. Staughton was the first interview on Green & Red, during its second episode, and he discussed various issues regarding civil rights and especially labor organizing.

(Errata: It was Herbert Apthecker, not David Dellinger, who went to Vietnam with Staughton and Tom Hayden. My bad, BB)

Staughton Lynd was one of the most important American Activists/Scholars from the mid-20th Century onward. As a historian, he was one of the first prominent scholars associated with the "New Left" and he did pathbreaking work on the colonial war of liberation against the British Empire, situating it not just as a fight over Home Rule, but also "who should rule at home," i.e. what type of class relations would exist in the new country.

Staughton was on the faculty at Spelman University where he and colleague Howard Zinn became active in the Civil Rights Movement (activity that cost Zinn his job there). Staughton became head of the Mississippi Summer Freedom Education Project, organized by SNCC. He then moved on to the faculty at Yale University, but that was short-lived. He traveled to northern Vietnam in 1965 as part of an antiwar contingent and the Liberals at Yale fired him for his political activity. After that he, and his wife, another acclaimed activist, Alice became lawyers specializing in Labor Law and Prison Reform.

The Lynds moved to Niles, Ohio (also Bob Buzzanco's hometown) where Staughton became one of the leaders of a 1977 movement to save Youngstown, Ohio steel mills from closing down. He has been active in labor matters since and he and Alice also have defended death row prisoners and worked with military veterans on the issue of "moral injury."

For more on Staughton, see, among others, his books Class Conflict, Slavery, and the United States Constitution: Ten Essays; Moral Injury & Nonviolent Resistance (with Alice Lynd); and The Fight Against Shutdowns: Youngstown's Steel Mill Closings. There is also a god biogaphy of Staughton, Carl Mirra's The Admirable Radical: Staughton Lynd and Cold War Dissent, 1945–1970. Staughton's Papers are archived at Kent State University:http://bit.ly/3tQ4FsD

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This is a Green and Red Podcast (@PodcastGreenRed) production. Produced by Bob (@bobbuzzanco) and Scott (@sparki1969). “Green and Red Blues" by Moody. Editing by Isaac.