Photo of David Dellinger and Staughton Lynd, radical pascifists. Caption: "WA P-080907 8/9/65 WASHINGTON: Two leaders of a group of 800 pacifists, who marched to the foot of the Capitol 8/9 to protest U.S. policies in Viet Nam, are shown after they were smeared with red paint by two youthful fascists. At left is Dave Dellinger, editor of Liberation, a pacifist magazine in New York, and at right, Staughton Lynd, a Yale University professor, who was one of the few in the group wearing a white shirt and tie. UPI TELEPHOTO dl." Date written on back: April 10, 1965. Photo credit: United Press International.

Shown above is a pin used during bi-coastal anti-war demonstrations held in the spring of 1967. (Actual pin size: 2 1/2".) In November 1966 anti-war activists organized the Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam. Veteran peace activist A. J. Muste was the committee's chair, with Dave Dellinger as one of its four vice chairs.[30] The Spring Mobilization resulted in two massive anti-Vietnam war marches, one in New York City, the other in San Francisco, both of which occurred on April 15, 1967. At the time it broke the record as the largest anti-war protest in US history.[31] In June 1967 the group was re-organized as the National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, or, as it was commonly called, MOBE.[32]

Photo capturing the clash of anti-war protestors and guards at the Pentagon. Caption: "(WX36) Washington, Oct. 21--BUTTING IN--Troops use rifle butts in their encounter with demonstrators outside the Pentagon late tonight. (AP Wirephoto) (See AP Wire Story) (rh72330stf) 1967." Photo credit: Associated Press Wirephoto. Date stamp on back: October 22, 1967. In the summer of 1967 the National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam was formed. David Dellinger, who called for Americans to move from "protest to resistance" to the war, served as its chair.[33] The group organized an enomous anti-war protest, which occurred in the nation's capitol on October 21. Reportedly, one of the goals was to "shut down" the Pentagon.[34] The non-violent Dellinger recalled, that upon reaching that military stronghold, "I had never before been hit and kicked by so many people so many times. . . . A swarm of government marshalls rushed us from the opposite direction, flailing and beating us with clubs."[35]

 

Photo showing the National Guard and protestors encountering one another on Michigan Avenue during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, 1968. The photograph provides no photographer's name or other source.

Caption: "ADV. FOR 6:30P.M., EST, Sunday, DEC. 1, WITH CHICAGO VIOLENCE STORIES) (NY3-Dec. 1) 1) REPORT SAYS NEWSMEN DELIBERATELY BEATEN--According to a special federal report to the President's commission on violence, dozens of newsmen covering Chicago street clashes during the Democratic National Convention last August were deliberately attacked and beaten by police. John Evans, NBC Newsman, interviewed a bloodied man after Evans said he was struck by a policeman Aug. 27 in Chicago's Lincoln Park. (AP Wirephoto)." Photo credit: Associated Press Wirephoto.

Greeting card with cover showing the "Chicago Seven" defendants, left to right, top row: Lee Weiner, Dave Dellinger, Jerry Rubin, and Tom Hayden; left to right, bottom row: John Froines, Rennie Davis, and Abbie Hoffman. The assistant prosecutor considered Dellinger the chief architect of the Chicago protests. In fact, in the court record, the case was entered as United States v. Dellinger et al.[36]

Inside a greeting card sent during the "Chicago Seven" trial. (The card's cover is also shown in this exhibit.) The envelope of the card is postmarked May 11, 1970, Winnetka, Illinois, and was sent to someone at the Medical Records department of Lyster Army Hospital, Fort Rucker, Alabama.

Caption: "(NY21-Nov. 5) FOUR YEARS FOR CONTEMPT--Judge Julius J. Hoffman sentenced Black Panther leader Bobby G. Seale, above, to four years in prison Wednesday on contempt charges. Hoffman also declared a mistrial for Seale, separating him from seven other defendants charged with conspiring to incite rioting during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. (AP Wirephoto) (See AP Wire Story) (ral41800fls) 1969". Photo credit: Associated Press Wirephoto. In October 1970, Hoffman, the same judge who ordered Bobby bound and gagged at trial, dropped (without comment) the riot conspiracy charges against him.[37] Of the sixteen contempt charges Hoffman imposed on him, ultimately, four were dismissed by another court and the government declined to prosecute the ones that remained.[38] 

Record album cover for Elizabethan Songs & New Spirituals by Bayard Rustin and produced by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. The biographical sketch on the cover's reverse side states that "as college secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and an expert in applying nonviolent solutions to conflict situations, his [Rustin's] singing has been simply an 'added attraction' for the thousands of people, in this country and abroad, who have heard him speak." However, in 1953, Bayard was convicted on a "morals charge" (for homosexual activity).[39] Consequently, according to an FOR statement issued soon afterwards, "at his own suggestion, his service as an FOR staff member terminated."[40] That same year, with David Dellinger's strong advocacy on his behalf, he obtained a position with the War Resisters League as Executive Secretary.[41]

For opposing war, David Dellinger was jailed during WWII. While incarcerated he and other conscientious objectors were harshly punished for their nonviolent acts of resistance against the racism and brutality inside prison walls.

That he was (according to Leonard Weinglass, a lawyer who defended him in Chicago) “a dissident pacifist as opposed to a passive pacifist” was evidenced in his essay “Declaration of War” from 1945.[1] He explained that he wrote it in response to the US “atomic bombs [that] were exploded on congested cities filled with civilians” in Japan.[2] “The sudden murder of 300,000 Japanese is consistent with the ethics of a society which is bringing up millions of its own children in city slums,” he charged.[3] “There must be civil disobedience of laws which are contrary to human welfare,” he continued.[4] Yet, he insisted, “the war for total brotherhood must be a nonviolent war carried on by methods worthy of the ideals we seek to serve.”[5]

As a lead organizer of the Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, Dellinger messaged Martin Luther King, Jr. He communicated that King's condemning the war “is long overdue.”[6] “If he fails to act now,” he remarked to a King aide, “history will pass him by.”[7] That spring, April 1967, the iconic Civil Rights leader denounced the war in his landmark speech, “Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam.”[8]

An independent commission (the “Walker Commission”) decided that a “police riot” occurred in 1968 during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.[9][10] It was, however, the so-called “Chicago Eight” progressive political activists who stood trial.[11] (Later, when one of the defendants, Black Panther leader Bobby Seale, was removed from the case and tried separately, the group became known as the “Chicago Seven.”[12]) To the assistant prosecutor Dellinger was “the principal architect” of the stormy convention week events.[13] But Seale, who was beaten, bound, and gagged in court for demanding his right to the legal council of his choice, called David “a true revolutionary humanist.”[14] He admired him for being “the main Chicago codefendant to support my . . . rights.”[15]

Dellinger was the most outspoken in court. To judge Julius Hoffman he declared, “You want us to be like good Germans, supporting the evils of our decade,” and also “like poor people,” “women,” and “children” who are “supposed to stay in their place.”[16] This court “is a travesty of justice and if you had any sense at all you would know that the record you read condemns you and not us.”[17]

At a Roman Catholic high school booster club gathering, the trial's prosecutor announced, “we've lost our kids to the freaking fag revolution.”[18] “Bobby Seale,” he said while attacking the defendants, “was the only one I don't think was a fag.”[19] For David the comments potentially carried weight. In 1947, his younger brother, Fiske, was murdered for being homosexual.[20]

His death influenced Dellinger. In 1953, activist Bayard Rustin was arrested for homosexual activity and forced to resign from the peace organization, the Fellowship of Reconciliation. (In the judgment of FOR leader, the veteran peace activist Frances Witherspoon whose life-partner was a woman, his continued employment was “at this juncture . . . a considerable liability.”[21] [22]) Yet, Dellinger stood by him. Praising Rustin's political and organizational skills as “truly inventive, courageous, and brilliant,” he successfully pushed to land him a job at the War Resisters League.[23]

Betty Dellinger noted that her husband “may've been interested in homosexual things.”[24] Indeed, according to David, he had a “short-run sexual liaison” with a male peacenik during a walk to promote peace.[25] He revealed that when younger he received “strong conditioning against homoeroticism” and had dismissed “homosexuality as a disease.”[26] Nevertheless, he developed strong affection for his college roommate who, after Dellinger told him so, “begged” him “never to tell anyone else about it.”[27] “He was,” wrote Dellinger, “ too good a friend . . . to 'insult' me by coming right out and saying that only a queer could fall in love with his roommate.”[28] Ultimately, Dellinger commented that he came “to hold a view that . . . at some natural level everyone is bisexual.”[29]

Sources:

1. Andrew E. Hunt, David Dellinger: The Life and Times of a Nonviolent Revolutionary (New York: New York University, 2006), 223.

2. Dave Dellinger, “Declaration of War,” in Revolutionary Nonviolence: Essays (Garden City: Anchor, 1971), 18.

3. Revolutionary, 20.

4. Revolutionary, 21

5. Revolutionary, 21.

6. Hunt, 161.

7. Hunt, 161.

8. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam,” (April 1967), note below speech title: “From Ramparts (May 1967), pp. 33-37. This is the authorized form of the original address, slightly condensed for publication by Dr. King,” http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/king.html.

9. Hunt, 201.

10. Hunt, 201.

11. Hunt, 215.

12. Hunt, 215.

13. Hunt, 211.

14. Hunt, 215.

15. Hunt, 215.

16. Hunt, 221-222.

17. Hunt, 222.

18. Ian Lekus, “Losing Our Kids: Queer Perspectives on the Chicago Seven Conspiracy Trial,” in The New Left Revisited, ed. John McMillian and Paul Buhle (Philadelphia: Temple University, 2003), 200, http://books.google.com/books?id=U_Ohks41z2IC&pg=PA200&lpg=PA200&dq=booster+club+fag+revolution+1970&source=bl&ots=AZEySV8eyf&sig=MUvJCq4VyRdnB19XWVBO8eahEjc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=P5rkUI3KPOaJ0QGFt4DwCw&ved=0CEQQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=booster%20club%20fag%20revolution%201970&f=false.

19. “Prosecutor of 'Chicago 7' Denounces 'Fag Revolution,'” February 27, [1970], PDF of a newspaper article from an unnamed newspaper, http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDkQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fjfk.hood.edu%2FCollection%2FWeisberg%2520Subject%2520Index%2520Files%2FD%2520Disk%2FDemocratic%2520National%2520Convention%2FItem%2520005.pdf&ei=oijaUJSPHoS90AHim4H4DQ&usg=AFQjCNGCF-3P239hU6oJv-uc5GAX07SpTg&sig2=SiF9XAH1pmfemcLceqiNiQ.

20. Hunt, 91

21. Lillian Faderman, To Believe in Women: What Lesbians Have Done for America—A History (Boston: Mariner, 2000), 160.

22. Hunt, 104.

23. Hunt, 105.

24. Hunt 105.

25. David Dellinger, From Yale to Jail: The Life Story of a Moral Dissenter (New York: Pantheon, 1993), 454.

26. Hunt, 24.

27. Hunt, 24.

28. Hunt, 24.

29. Yale, 454.

30. "Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam," VietnamWar.net, http://www.vietnamwar.net/SpringMobilization.htm.

31. "Spring Mobilization," n.p.

32. Hunt, 165.

33. Hunt, 176.

34. Hunt, 172.

35. Hunt, 178.

36. Bruce A. Ragsdale, The Chicago Seven: 1960s Radicalism in the Federal Courts (N.p.: Federal Judicial Center, 2008), 4, http://www.fjc.gov/history/docs/chicago7.pdf.

37. "Judge Orders Bobby Seale Case Dropped," Spokane Daily Chronicle, "Final Fireside Edition," October 10, 1970, front page, http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1338&dat=19701019&id=xKZYAAAAIBAJ&sjid=S_gDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6236,548456.

38. "Bobby Seale (1936— )," under "Biographies," in "The Chicago Seven Conspiracy Trial," History of the Federal Judiciary, Federal Judicial Center, http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/tu_chicago7_bio_seale.html.

39. John D'Emilio, Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin (New York: Free, 2003 ), 192, http://books.google.com/books?id=9bR1TkpkaxwC&q=resign#v=snippet&q=resign&f=false.

40. D'Emilio, 192.

41. "War Resistance and Homophobia: WRL's Hiring of Bayard Rustin," Building Bridges through Revolutionary Nonviolence: Bayard Rustin and the Furture of Peace and Freedom, slide 23, http://www.slideshare.net/warresistersleague/building-bridges-through-revolutionary-nonviolence-bayard-rustin-and-the-future-of-peace-and-freedom.