Staughton Lynd


Staughton Craig Lynd is an American conscientious objector, Quaker, peace activist and civil rights activist, historian, professor, author and lawyer. His involvement in social justice causes has brought him into contact with some of the nation's most influential activists, including Howard Zinn, Tom Hayden, A. J. Muste and David Dellinger.
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.

Early life

Lynd was one of two children born to the renowned sociologists Robert Staughton Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd, who authored the groundbreaking "Middletown" studies of Muncie, Indiana, in the late 1920s and '30s. Staughton Lynd inherited not only his parents' gifts as scholars, but also their strong socialist beliefs. Although Lynd never embraced undemocratic forms of socialism, his ideological outlook led to his expulsion from a non-combatant position in the U.S. military during the McCarthy Era.
He went on to earn a doctorate in history at Columbia University and accepted a teaching position at Spelman College, in Georgia, where he worked closely with historian and civil rights activist Howard Zinn. 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 the SNCC-organized Freedom Schools of Mississippi. After accepting a position at Yale University, Lynd relocated to New England, along with his wife, Alice, and their children. In 1965 he gave lectures on 'The History of the American Left' at the Free University of New York.

Vietnam-era activism

At Yale Lynd became an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War. His protest activities included speaking engagements, protest marches, and a controversial visit to Hanoi along with Herbert Aptheker and Hayden on a fact-finding trip at the height of the war, which made him unwelcome to the Yale administration. As the protest movement became increasingly violent, Lynd began to have misgivings. As a self-described "social democratic pacifist" and "Marxist Existentialist Pacifist", he became more interested in the possibilities of local organizing.
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.

Labor activism

In 1968, Lynd published his book 'Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism' It came under severe criticism by Marxist professor Eugene Genovese, writing in the New York Review of Books. Professor David Donald in reviewing the book called it "a major work in American intellectual history" About the Cambridge University 2009 reprint of the book, Commentary Magazine referred to it as an "established classic". It became clear that Yale would deny Lynd tenure, and he became unemployable in academia. Lynd relocated his family to Chicago.
There, he struggled to make a living from community organizing. Meanwhile, he and his wife, Alice, embarked upon an oral history project dealing with the working class. The conclusions of this work, titled Rank 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 the University of Chicago law school, where he earned a degree in 1976.

Rust Belt activism

From there, the Lynds relocated to Youngstown, Ohio, in the heart of the Rust 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 Youngstown steel 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. Staughton Lynd remained extremely active as an attorney, taking on a broad range of cases, including those concerning chemically disabled auto workers and retired steelworkers.
Lynd's book, Lucasville, is an investigation into the events surrounding the 1993 prison uprising at Southern 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.

Works by Lynd