A Radical Returns: SDS Founder Tom Hayden Tries to Rekindle Student Activism at U-M

‘/ don? like this burden of hav/ng to cure apathy /n 45 /Tl/FIUTGS.
- 60’s political activist Tom Hayden on his role with students today
SDS founder Tom Hayden tries to rekindle student aotnvnsm at U-|\/I
By STEPHEN C/\lN i.'_ _1__f1l_-;_~11;___; __1_5 _ __-. _ _ __
News surf REPORTER '3fI_fjg_1_ _:._ -1 J 1, i
Chicago’s “Days of Rage” are 28 1 ,_-__ _'-j:__~ __ 1 1, nl; 1 _~
years past, but Tom Hayden - the ~--_` "=__ ____ _ 1» _ 1
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still beating the drums for progres- ii; ‘=_i _Q-1_f_gI___ '_»f i’t" ' _j i -1 _- 1
Slvism- 1 1 if £,;~~ -"- 0 3 _ 1
The Michigan Student Assembly W' ' ' _~. __ ' _ ' ' _
brought the most famous of the __ __ 1 '__f[_zf .4t__ 2;__'1 " f_ ~ ‘ _
University of Michigan’s 1960s radi- “ 1___ ____________ _ -_`_ 9- 't'o‘< ff; 1»_` _`.~- _*LE i.`
Gals backs to Campus Mellflay ill _ »i_h ff -ff’;"' ELT i"~ #Lf ° 7 'I
hopes of energizing a new genera- ,_1f I "‘a ____ --=-1< 1- __‘-_ i . 1 z_
tion of Student actiViSm_ _ __ ___1 i 1'___ _ __ __ __ 1
“We used our budget for the year _- 1_ “i”: ' _.'_ i `_,__12f1Q`1 1 f' 1' '-
to provide his air fare from Califor- ‘ 11 '_--_ _ 1 39-f ° 1
nia,” said1Anne Marie Ellison, chair Q 1' o"_' j___ »`_____‘ -l_;ij _lrl '__ -1" _;;___;;j_ 1 - _ _ 1
_ of the assembly’s Student Rights _ 1"- Q _ ."` _ _~ f 11 'W
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“I hope that it really galvanizes ' _____. / ~.» -__1g111_1 _ 1
the students, inspires them and ~' -_1”f 71” QQ- 1 1 _ 1
arouses in them a sense of shared 1 » 1 _ _'_~ f i_ * 1 1
values. It’s really wonderful to meet ' _ _ __;j’€7 '_ - _
someone whois apart of the history `1 ___~~ f 1 1 '_ - 1
you study.” ‘1 ` I x ` ' '
But Hayden, who was a founder ' ` News ,,Heie,Rennn CHASE
Hayden is currently focusing his political energy on campaign
See HAYDEN' Back page finance reform, environmental issues and preparing for a possi-
ble million-dollar race for mayor of Los Angeles. _ _
I ' l ' News moto-ROBERT cms
California state Sen. Tom Hayden talks to fellow fellow 1960fs'
activists Richard Gull, center, and AI Haber at the University
of Michigan Monday.
Continued from A1 _ _ _
o -
HAYDEN . Activist offe rs ti
Society (SDS), defendant in Chi- said. “We created a lot of space-in
cago Seven show trial and Vietnam the ‘60s. Now, the batteries 1- are
War groom of Jane Fonda, was hav- dimming.” _ '
ing none of that. Hayden credits a new sense of
“I don’t like this burden of having spirituality with keeping his batter-
to cure apathy in 45 minutes, or of ies charged, and that’s reflectedfin
having to make impossible compar- his newly published environmental-
isons between generations,” he told ist tome, “The Lost Gospel of
a audience of about 100 that was di- Earth.” j_ 1
vided about two-to-one between “Four thousand straight morn-
students and adults of their par- ings of waking up to fight the sys-
ents’ generation. ' tem,” he said. “I’m a medical ex-
“We all have to live in the pre- periment. How long can Hayden
sent. My present is full enough. I go?” _ '
don’t like to compare the ‘60s to the Hayden’s day included -the
‘90s. I’l1 pass on that opportunity.” speech, _two receptions, a class,and
_lt was a more subdnsd,_1Ha¥_ n_1-1,. and Psnnlaesh
_ `111- _ ° f ' _
whose chee 1 are yle mg to jow, xéliar u , a pro essor of phi-
whose black hair is giving way to losophy at the U-M Flint, came to
gray. And he has parlayed 10 years recall old times with Hayden, who
in the California Assembly and four had given him and his wife passes
years in the state Senate into a to sit in the reserved family section
measure of political power that is of the Chicago Seven conspiracy tri-
beginning to show some results in a ° al in 1969. 1 1-
handful of reforms he has helped Rachel Ross, a political science
enact into law. junior from Boston whose father
Hayden still _campaigns for eco- was a another co-founder of the
nomic justice - blaming his gener- SDS, said Hayden was “a part of my
ation for abandoning the killing life” as a child but she hadn’t seen
grounds of inner-city America just him since she was 10.
as his parents’ generation sanc- Ilona Cohen, president of the
tioned the war in Southeast Asia. American Civil Liberties Union’s U-
But his great new issues are M student chapter, said she came
campaign finance reform, saving to get a dose of reality to counter
salmon and redwoods, and, he ac- the “romanticized notion of activ-
knowledges, preparing for a possi- ism of the ‘60s and ‘70s” that many
ble million-dollar race for mayor of students have. 1 _
Los Angeles. Michelle Bower, a junior from
Contrary to the hopes of some of Eastern Michigan University, found
the students who had come to hear herself in the audience because-she
him, Hayden offered no blueprint had to review a speech for a class
for rekindling student activism. and had put it off for too long. _ _
Alan Haber, a co-founder of the “I know absolutely nothing about
SDS who lives in Ann Arbor, told his him,” she said. “I had to pick some-
old friend and colleague about a body and heard it was some kind of
gathering of former SDS members political speech.”
and their children this summer in Hayden’s talk found mostly re-
which the children asked, “How do ceptive ears, and his conclusion
you survive economically in the was greeted with a warm round of
world, believing the things you do, applause. 1
in a world so hostile to truth?” 1 “He has changed with the times,
The answer, 1 said Hayden, 1 is but he’s kept to his core beliefs and
“keeping space for humane activity that’s remarkable,” said 'MSA Vice
in institutions. You can be an inde- President Probir Mehta. “I think it
pendent journalist and work for a was the right message: Get in the
large paper. You create it, you enter system and change it.” _ -
it, and people will try to take it Vince Keenan, Ellison’s prede-
away. 'S 1 cessor as head of the Student
“The other answer is living very, Rights Commission, said: “I respect
very poor, but it is an answer only the man and his accomplishments.
for a few if you don’t contemplate He didn’t come here breathing fire.
children or your own hea1th,” he It was not a call to arms.”