David Dellinger

David T. Dellinger(August 22, 1915 – May 25, 2004) was an Americanpacifistand an activist fornonviolentsocial change.Although active beginning in the early 1940s, Dellinger reached peak prominence as one of theChicago Seven,who were put on trial in 1969.

David Dellinger
Dellinger'smug shot,1943
Born	(1915-08-22)August 22, 1915 Wakefield, Massachusetts,U.S.
Died	May 25, 2004(2004-05-25)(aged 88) Montpelier, Vermont,U.S.
Education	Yale University(BA) New College, Oxford Union Theological Seminary
Occupations	Writer activist pacifist
Known for	Political activism, one of theChicago Seven
Spouse	Elizabeth Peterson

Early life

Dellinger was born inWakefield, Massachusettsto a wealthy family. He was the son of Maria Fiske and Raymond Pennington Dellinger; his father was an alumnus ofYale University,a lawyer, and a prominentRepublicanand friend ofCalvin Coolidge.His maternal grandmother, Alice Bird Fiske, was active in theDaughters of the American Revolution.

Dellinger graduated fromYale Universitywith a Bachelor of Arts in economics, began a doctorate for a year atNew College, Oxford,and studied theology atUnion Theological SeminaryofColumbia Universitywith the intention of becoming a Congregationalist minister.At Yale he had been a classmate and friend of the economist and political theoristWalt Rostow.Rejecting his comfortable background, he walked out of Yale one day to live withhobosduring theDepression.While at Oxford University, he visited Nazi Germany and drove an ambulance during theSpanish Civil War.Dellinger, who opposed the war's victoriousNationalist faction,led byFrancisco Franco,later recalled, "After Spain, World War II was simple. I wasn't even tempted to pick up a gun to fight forGeneral Motors,U.S. Steel,or theChase Manhattan Bank,even if Hitler was running the other side. "

Political career

DuringWorld War II,he was an imprisonedconscientious objectorand anti-war agitator. In federal prison, he and fellow conscientious objectors, includingRalph DiGiaand Bill Sutherland, protested racial segregation in the dining halls, which were ultimately integrated because of the protests.He sat on the executive committee of theSocialist Party of Americaand theYoung People's Socialist League,its youth section, until he left in 1943. In February 1946, Dellinger helped to found the radical pacifistCommittee for Nonviolent Revolution.In 1948, he co-founded theCentral Committee for Conscientious Objectors.He was also a long-time member of theWar Resisters League,joining the staff in March 1955. In July–November 1951, Dellinger participated in the Paris-to-Moscow bicycle trip for disarmament with Ralph DiGia, Bill Sutherland, and Art Emery and sponsored by thePeacemakers;cyclists got as far as the headquarters of the Soviet Army in Vienna. “We were warned not to go to the Soviet zone. People who went to the army headquarters were sometimes never seen again. But we didn’t think that would happen to us. The worst that would happen was jail, and I already knew I could stand that. I was only worried about what I was putting my family through back in the States.”The Paris-to-Moscow Bicycle Trip for Disarmament was a key inspiration for theSan Francisco to Moscow Walk for Peacein 1960–1961.

In the 1950s and the 1960s, Dellinger joined freedom marches in theSouthand led many hunger strikes in jail. In 1956, he,Dorothy Day,andA. J. Mustefounded the magazineLiberationas a forum for the pacifist, non-Marxistleft.Dellinger had contacts and friendships with such diverse individuals asEleanor Roosevelt,Ho Chi Minh,Martin Luther King Jr.,Abbie Hoffman,A.J. Muste,Greg Calvert,James Bevel,David McReynolds,and numerousBlack Pantherssuch asFred Hampton,whom he greatly admired. As chair of theFifth Avenue Vietnam Peace Parade Committee,he worked with many antiwar organizations and helped bring King and Bevel into leadership positions in the 1960s antiwar movement. In 1966 Dellinger travelled to bothNorthandSouth Vietnamto learn first-hand the impact of American bombing. He later recalled that critics ignored his trip toSaigonand focused solely on his visit toHanoi.In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest"pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments to protest the Vietnam War,and later became a sponsor of the War Tax Resistance project, which practiced and advocatedtax resistanceas a form of protest against the war.

Chicago Seven trial

As US involvement in Vietnam grew, Dellinger appliedMahatma Gandhi's principles ofnonviolenceto his activism within the growing antiwar movement. One of the high points of this was theChicago Seventrial over allegations that Dellinger and several others had conspired to cross state lines with the intention of inciting a riot, afterantiwar protesters had interruptedthe1968 Democratic National ConventioninChicago.The ensuing court case was turned by Dellinger and his co-defendants into a nationally publicized platform for putting the Vietnam War on trial. On February 18, 1970, they were acquitted of the conspiracy charge, but five defendants, including Dellinger, were convicted of crossing state lines to incite a riot. All of the defendants, along with their two lawyers, were given sentences for contempt of court; Dellinger was sentenced to 29 months and 16 days on 32 contempt counts.

JudgeJulius Hoffman's handling of the trial, along with theFBI'sbuggingof the defense lawyers, resulted, with the help of theCenter for Constitutional Rights,in the convictions being overturned by theSeventh Circuit Court of Appealstwo years later. The appeals court remanded the contempt citations for trial before a judge other than Julius Hoffman. Dellinger was eventually convicted on five contempt counts, but was sentenced to time already served.

Subsequent activities

Dellinger spoke at the December 1971John Sinclair Freedom RallyinAnn Arbor, Michigan.

In the late 1970s, Dellinger spent two years teaching atGoddard College's Adult Degree Program andVermont College.In 2001, he was invited back to give thecommencement addressto the graduating class of Goddard's Residential Undergraduate Program.

Dellinger also was a founder ofSeven Days,an Americanalternativenews magazinewritten from a leftist oranti-establishmentperspective. Dellinger obtained the subscription list ofRampartsmagazine,which ceased publication in October 1975.Seven Daysbegan preview editions in 1975, published regularly starting in 1977 but ceased publication in 1980.

In 1986, when his Yale class of 1936 held its 50th reunion, Dellinger wrote in the reunion book: "Lest my way of life sounds puritanical or austere, I always emphasize that in the long run one can't satisfactorily say no to war, violence, and injustice unless one is simultaneously saying yes to life, love, and laughter."

For his lifelong commitment to pacifist values and for serving as a spokesperson for the peace movement, Dellinger was awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience award on September 26, 1992.

In 1996, during thefirst Democratic convention held in Chicago since 1968,Dellinger and his grandson were arrested along with nine others, including Civil Rights Movement historian Randy Kryn,Bradford Lyttle,andAbbie Hoffman's son Andrew, during asit-inat Chicago's Federal Building.

In 2001, Dellinger led a group of young activists fromMontpelier, Vermont,toQuebec Cityto protest a conference that planned to create afree trade zone.

Death

Dellinger died in Montpelier, Vermont, in 2004 after an extensive stay at Heaton Woods Nursing Home.He suffered fromAlzheimer's diseasefor years before his death.

Popular culture

• Peter Boyleplayed Dellinger in the 1987 filmConspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8.
• Dylan Bakervoiced Dellinger in the 2007 animated documentaryChicago 10.
• In the 2010 filmThe Chicago 8Dellinger was played by Peter Mackenzie.
• John Carroll Lynchportrayed Dellinger in the 2020 drama filmThe Trial of the Chicago 7.

Selected works

• Dellinger, David T.,Revolutionary Nonviolence: Essays by Dave Dellinger,Indianapolis:Bobbs-Merrill,1970
• Dellinger, David T.,More Power Than We Know: The People’s Movement Toward Democracy,Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press, 1975.ISBN0-385-00162-2
• Dellinger, David T.,Vietnam Revisited: From Covert Action to Invasion to Reconstruction,Boston, MA:South End Press,1986.ISBN0-89608-320-9
• Dellinger, David T.,From Yale to Jail: The Life Story of a Moral Dissenter,New York:Pantheon Books,1993.ISBN0-679-40591-7.(Dellinger's autobiography)
• Dellinger, David (1999)."Why I Refused to Register in the October 1940 Draft and a Little of What It Led To".In Gara, Larry; Gara, Lenna Mae (eds.).A Few Small Candles: War Resisters of World War II Tell Their Stories.Kent State University Press. pp.20–37.ISBN0-87338-621-3.

See also

• List of peace activists

Further reading

• Edited by Mark L. Levine, George C. McNamee and Daniel Greenberg / Foreword by Aaron Sorkin.The Trial of the Chicago 7: The Official Transcript.New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020.ISBN978-1-9821-5509-4.OCLC1162494002
• Edited with an introduction byJon Wiener.Conspiracy in the Streets: The Extraordinary Trial of the Chicago Seven.Afterword byTom Haydenand drawings byJules Feiffer.New York: The New Press, 2006.ISBN978-1-56584-833-7
• Edited by Judy Clavir and John Spitzer.The Conspiracy Trial: The extended edited transcript of the trial of the Chicago Eight. Complete with motions, rulings, contempt citations, sentences and photographs.Introduction byWilliam Kunstlerand foreword byLeonard Weinglass.Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1970.ISBN0224005790.OCLC16214206
• Schultz, John.The Conspiracy Trial of the Chicago Seven.Foreword byCarl Oglesby.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020.ISBN9780226760742.(Originally published in 1972 asMotion Will Be Denied.)

• Bennett, Scott H (2003).Radical Pacifism: The War Resisters League and Gandhian Nonviolence in America, 1915–1963.Syracuse University Press.ISBN0-8156-3028-X.
• Clavir, Judy; and John Spitzer, (eds.),The Conspiracy Trial,Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1970
• Cornell, Andrew (2016).Unruly Equality: U.S. Anarchism in the Twentieth Century.University of California Press. pp. 166–.ISBN978-0-520-28675-7.
• DeBenedetti, Charles (1990).An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era.Syracuse University Press. p.24.ISBN978-0-8156-0245-3.
• Hunt, Andrew (2006).David Dellinger: The Life and Times of a Nonviolent Revolutionary.New York University Press.
• Miller, Timothy (September 1, 1992)."The Roots of the 1960s Communal Revival".American Studies:73–93.ISSN0026-3079.
• Conspiracy on appeal; appellate brief on behalf of the Chicago Eight.Of Counsel: Arthur Kinoy, Helene E. Schwartz [and] Doris Peterson. New York, Center for Constitutional Rights; distributed by Agathon Publication Services, 1971.

External links

• Revolutionary Non-Violence: Remembering Dave Dellinger, 1915–2004– Tribute byDemocracy Now!