I seem to write a lot of obits – Page 2

Margot Adler Sang at My Wedding

Margo in the foreground; that's me in the back. — Margo in the foreground; that’s me in the back.

It was 1971. The song – no surprise to anyone who was young then, was Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream, Ed McCurdy’s anti-war anthem. We knew we couldn’t get married in the middle of the war that had defined much of our lives without acknowledging it, and the song was the perfect way. Margot was amazing, her voice clear and passionate; people even cried as we two 20-somethings stood, mid-ceremony, and Margot sang. She had a great voice, had actually been a music person forever, and attended the famed Music and Art High School in Manhattan.

We met cute. A friend brought her into the Senate Radio-TV Gallery, just off the press balcony overlooking the Senate. Reporters wrote their spots there, and there was a small studio where Senators could come and make statements for the cameras. I didn’t know Margot, but her Pacifica Radio friend knew she had a question that any pal of Margot’s would have loved.

“Pacifica (the progressive, listener-supported NY-based FM radio station) wants to hire me to cover the White House. I’ve just come back from Cuba where I was helping the Venceremos Brigade harvest sugar cane. Will that be a problem?”

This was Richard Nixon’s White House she was asking about. You can imagine my answer.

It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

From then on, until I left Washington with the man who is still my husband, our adventures were many, and varied and intense. The moment that rises to the top though, is a small one, very Margot – precise and painful.

We had seen Love Story, the shameless, sentimental, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” Love Story. (Yeah, I know, but everyone went – even politicos like us.) She was quite upset, more than I would have thought – and I never go by Mt. Sinai Hospital on Fifth Ave without remembering it. “What I hated most” she said, “was the scene on the street outside the hospital where my mother died. It was like they threw it in there to make the whole thing extra painful.”

It’s a small story but it always stayed with me. Along with the time we came to NY after we had moved to Palo Alto so Rick could finish school. We were staying with her and we walked in and there in the front hall was her altar. It was the first time we learned of her decision to follow her Wiccan self and it was such a weird way to find out. She kind of said “Well I couldn’t just put it in a letter, right?”

She was, of course, a brilliant reporter and writer and thinker. She was fun and alive and full of curiosity and political brilliance and personal warmth and charm. I hadn’t seen her in a long time, but this week, she’s very much with me, along with the memories of that day, and of course, this song.

So Long Mr. Salinger, and Thanks

All I wanted when I was a kid was to be Franny Glass. To be part of the Glass family, intellectual, quirky, and with lists of beautiful quotes on a poster board on the back of their bedroom door. They were sad and weird and wonderful.

And now, today, we lose their creator, most beloved for Holden Caulfield, the eternally adolescent hero of Catcher in the Rye. Holden is worthy of every affectionate word written about him, and his palpable pain is familiar to those who’ve journeyed through the teen years, but the Glasses — well — they were a different kind of lovely.

They are all the children of one man, and he died today. I wish I could tell you what it felt like to read Catcher in the Rye at 13. I can remember where I was sitting as I read it – how I felt – and the deep sadness that accompanied Holden’s story. It must have been traumatic though, because later, when my son and I read it together, I was shocked to learn that Holden’s brother had died. I had jammed that fact someplace hard to reach, which means it was even more disturbing than I remember. Reading it with my own child was a beautiful experience to share with a young man of deep compassion and great sensibility – a memory I cherish. So Salinger gave me that, too.

(I’m not mentioning Joyce Maynard here. She had a right – but sheesh!) And I really don’t have much to say about the quiet recluse in the hills of New Hampshire. Farewell to him, yes, but also to yet another connection to the days when I was young – and more like Holden than like women of a Certain Age. The passions, the pain, the poetic anger at people for not being what we expect them to be and the desperate longing to rescue the imperiled and the lost.

Anyway,
I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of
rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big,
I mean – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy
cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go
over the cliff – I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re
going I have to come out from somewhere and <span>catch</span> them. That’s all I do all day. I’d just be the
catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing
I’d really like to be.”

I guess those who don’t dream of being the catcher long
to be the one who is caught. And those longings don’t go away whether you’re 13 or
63 (right – I first read it FIFTY years ago!) Imagine. No, it
doesn’t go away, but your perspective changes. The loveliness of that
kind of protecting — or being protected – it isn’t around much in the real
world. All the more reason to be grateful for the rare observer who can remind us of its sweetness, and of what we are capable of aspiring to.

And grateful I am. For Franny and Zooey and Seymour and all their craziness and for Holden, what he gave me then, and what I remember, even today.

Memories of Peter, Paul, and Mary Travers

The first time I ever heard Peter Paul and Mary I was 15 and spending the summer at a writing program at Exeter Academy – the first year they ever let “girls” into the school at all. I remember loving Blowin’ in the Wind, If I Had a Hammer and of course, Puff. I remember visiting another student’s home in Concord where her older brother, already in college, told me that the three were just “popularizers of Bob Dylan songs” and scornfully complaining that I should be listening to Dylan not them. (I didn’t find Bob Dylan until later – junior year, I guess.) I thought he was nuts To me, Peter Paul and Mary were an introduction to music that was about things I cared about: civil rights, war, peace and love — from a more political perspective.

From then on, through high school, into college and “out into the world” Peter Paul and Mary held a special place in my life. We seemed to cross paths often. We played their music all the time, of course. My sister and I saw them at a summer concert in Pittsburgh (my long-suffering mom driving us, of course.) I remember watching them sing at the 1963 March on Washington, and later seeing them at Wolf Trap with a blind date. And, most profoundly, I remember seeing them quite literally, save lives in Grant Park at the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968. Hordes of demonstrators were coming over a bridge into the part of the park right outside the Hilton. There had been trouble, lots of trouble, for at least days and this would be another terrible confrontation. Then, from nowhere, Peter, Paul and Mary started to sing. The demonstrators slowly converged around their platform, diverted from certain misery. It was quite a thing.

Here’s what else I remember. Mary Travers herself, who died today. She was a powerful model: not just her deep, resonant voice but also her powerful, sure presence, on stage and off. She was brave and funny and looked amazing. We all knocked ourselves out trying to have straight hair like hers: ironed it, slept with it wrapped around orange juice cans. She was a powerful presence.

Of course, part of her power, and that of Peter and Paul was their commitment. Where they were needed, they came. Civil rights marches, peace marches, the McCarthy presidential campaign” even regional and local union struggles. It was a signal to the rest of us: if we can show up, so can you. And we did. As another friend wrote to me tonight: “I just saw the news story. Can’t believe how much of our history was tied up with them.”

Making my way out of my office, thinking about writing this, I started singing to myself: “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane.” But I couldnt finish. I was close to tears. It’s happened so often this summer – icons of my life fading from view. Teddy Kennedy, Walter Cronkite, Robert McNamara, Don Hewitt, Ellie Greenwich, Patrick Swayze just yesterday, and now Mary. Each representing so many lives; so many memories.

I keep writing here because somehow I don’t want to stop. This ought to do it, though. (The other guy is John Denver)

So Long Patrick, and Thanks

Does anybody not love Dirty Dancing? At least for the many of us who were the darling Frances “Baby” Houseman, the idealistic, embryonic 60’s activist, Daddy’s girl for her brains, not her looks, the film is a misty, wonderful time capsule. And so, it may be, in essence, a women’s film – so romantic and sexy in a new-at-sex kind of way. But it wouldn’t have worked without the sweet, gifted Patrick Swayze, who died today. Although as Johnny Castle he gave us a young man who tried to present a weary, streetwise persona, he also brought us a man as idealistic as the rich girl who fell for him. The perfect first lover. Swayze, with grace and generosity, was all that and more.

This was a class story and coming-of-age story and a Times They Are A-Changin’ story, evocative in ways that are difficult to express. Baby, like us, was riding the cusp between the 50’s end of the 60’s and the Sixties that were to come. Her relationship with Johnny was the bridge between those times, and so he meant even more than his lovely self. I’ve always thought Swayze underestimated anyway but as I decided to write this I began to realize just how underestimated. Without the right Johnny, Frances would not have mattered.

I, at least, could look at her and know her future. Because it was mine. Like Baby I never hated my parents. Most of what I did that they wouldn’t have liked, I hid. Defiance was never a goal because I loved my parents and they loved me. We just didn’t see things like love and sex the same way so I decided just not to tell them. There were many other things we saw differently too, but they changed their minds because they listened to us as often as we changed ours by listening to them. We respected each other.

So I did all my overnight disappearing on campus and kept my mouth shut about it. And went home as the Cindy they knew — more political and determined, but with no desire to blow up the neighborhood or leave the people I’d loved — and still loved — behind. Like Frances, I responded to the Civil Rights movement and President Kennedy and longed to be part of what was to come. Like Frances I had a “Johnny” though mine didn’t dance.

Of course, Swayze went on to make Ghost, which I think was at least as successful and even more of a fairy tale. He appeared in gritty films like Road House and, as a tribute to his fellow dancers, many of whom died of AIDS, in drag in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar. And which role we choose to remember most probably depends on gender, and even more on age.

But for me, gratitude for the gift of memory, of the same sense of romance, in a way, that Twilight offers another generation, that’s tough to beat. And the gift, the reminder of the girl I remember and the hopes and dreams she took with her to college, that gift was from Patrick Swayze too.

For Ellie Greenwich, Who Really WAS Leader of the Pack, With Thanks

When our kids were little, we used to sing. All the time. And early on, many of the songs they loved were written by this woman: Ellie Greenwich. She was a tough cookie I think. She was also one of the great song writers of her generation. Ever heard Be My Baby? (“Bee my, bee my bay bee, my one and only baybee…”) Chapel of Love? (“Goin’ to the Cha pull and we’re gonna’ get ma a a reed”) River Deep, Mountain High ?(“Do I love you my oh my, river deep, mountain high” that was Tina Turner.) Ever hear of girl groups? Then you’ve heard of Ellie Greenwich. There’s a reason she’s in the Song Writers Hall of Fame. She died August 26, the same day as Senator Kennedy, so I’m a little late, but I have a lot to thank her for.

Freshman year we lived in a dorm with a big porch facing Seelye Hall, the main classroom building. We’d put our stereo speakers in the windows over the porch and blasted whatever we liked at the time, especially in the spring, as the snow melted and spirits rose. One of our classics was “Leader of the Pack.” All of us, the Gang of Four as we were then, could re relied upon, for no reason, to belt out “Hey there, where’d you meet him?” to which another would reply (in song, of course, and I know you know this) “I met him at the candy stoh – ore.” It sounds so silly, doesn’t it? But it wasn’t.

The tribal music Greenwich gave us was alive with the spirit that was all of us, before the War tore everything apart, when we just had fun and our minds were full of ideas and ambitions, and songs, and romantic daydreams, and songs, and learning how to be grown ups (slowly) and songs. And her songs were so universal, so full of a love of living and living for love – way before we even heard of our sister alums Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan. Somehow, as things became more serious, Doo Wa Diddy Diddy Dum Diddy Doo didn’t flow off the tongue so easily. That’s why I was so glad when a Broadway musical, Leader of the Pack, opened in the 80’s and gave us another chance – and a great cast album, full of many of her greatest songs.

My own favorite is all tangled up in a memory. It was a sunny fall day and my six-year-old and I were walking down a street someplace in the Village. And we were arm-in-arm. And our walk had a rhythm – right feet at the same time, left feet at the same time, just the two of us. And the rhythm? It came because, together, crossing the nearly 30 years between us, together, we were singing –Da Doo Ron Ron.”

Not quite this great, but not bad, either. So thanks Ellie. And the rest of you – see for yourselves.

The Amazing Don Hewitt: CBS News, Conventions, 60 Minutes and Me

You probably saw the 60 Minutes tribute to Don Hewitt last night; I had meant to write about him when he died, got distracted and then, last night, realized I couldn’t not (if you forgive the double negative) recall him a bit. The photo you see here was during the production, I think, of an interview with President Kennedy. It shows him in action, rather than in a cute photo so it’s the one I wanted to use.

I was a kid when I first met Hewitt – 21 and new to the CBS Washington Bureau. It was late 1968 and he’d come down from New York to get everyone excited about his new show, 60 Minutes. That’s right – it’s almost 41 years old. He was introduced to me as “the only producer who could make you proud that you were the only one who’d gotten the recipe for Tricia Nixon’s White House wedding cake.” It was that infectious sense of competition — the joy of it, not the rest of it — that inspired the rest of us. Oh – and it was only later that I learned he had also been the producer of the Kennedy-Nixon presidential debates, the first ever to appear on TV.

Of course he could also drive you crazy – pushing, making last-minute changes, taking forever to finally appoint women as producers (his long-time secretary became one of the best) and, like all people of great energy, sometimes yelling. Really yelling.

I had the most to do with him at the presidential nominating conventions, which used to run “gavel to gavel” – from the moment the convention began until the moment it ended, live on TV. Four “floor correspondents” wandered the convention hall searching for stories. Each, and later each two, had a producer. And these correspondents were the top talent, showcased in the pressure cooker of 8 – 12 hours of live television. Over the years I worked with Roger Mudd, Mike Wallace, Ed Bradley, Leslie Stahl and Dan Rather, among others. No shrinking violets here. And, presiding over them all, in his control room above the floor, was Don. When you had a story to offer you would go to a “floor phone” and call the booth. Someone would take your offer and relay it to Don (sometimes you’d tell him yourself) who would accept or reject it. Remember at the same time he was dealing with Walter Cronkite in the anchor booth and all the live guests who showed up there, remotes” out in the convention city and hometowns of about-to-be nominees and more. For all those hours, he’d make decisions. Sometimes you could argue, but usually you lost. With all the incoming data, he kept things flowing for four days (and evenings.) And he did it all with the same sense of “story telling” that he described as the secret behind the success of 60 Minutes. And it was a blast.

So there you are. Another “legend” gone – and he was a legend who transformed the news business for the better and kept it that way for a long time before commerce made it much harder to sustain the kind of quality he demanded. Except on 60 Minutes, of course.

Farewell to Eden Lipson, A Great Mother, Editor and Friend

There were so many of us in 1968, joined to battle the Vietnam War by helping Eugene McCarthy run for president. We lost the Senator several years ago, and Eli Segal, one of the best, soon after. Today I learned of the loss of another of the dear ones, Eden Ross Lipson. She died this morning of pancreatic cancer. You can see from this photo that she was a woman who relished life and laughter. Her greatest joys: her husband and her kids.

Although we shared a history from the campaign, we also shared some great lunches and adventures in Manhattan, where she had dozens of friends who loved and respected her. Principled and kind, she was a joy and support to so many.

In her work as Children’s Book Editor of the New York Times Book Review, Eden produced what is still the classic work on children’s literature. I knew her as she wrote the first edition; it was a real labor of love. Her understanding of kids, of books and of writing and purpose made her an ideal guide for anxious parents and savvy librarians alike.

Her generosity went far beyond the love of children that made her such a great advocate for the joy they would find in their books. It was she who gave me my first review assignment and it led to an entire side career as a book reviewer that lasted for years. She was a tough and smart editor, too.

I remember my review of one of my favorites: Jane Yolen’s The Devil’s Arithmetic. A time-travel Holocaust story, it is a beautiful book. I submitted a very positive review. Soon after, Eden called. In a tone slipping between amused and professional, she reminded me that not all parents were as open as I was, and that I needed to add some kind of caution to parents who were more protective about at what age their kids were exposed to tough information. She was right, of course. I began an embarrassed apology. Her response: if people didn’t need editors she wouldn’t have a job! I fixed the piece and it ran. Later, it was Eden who connected me with the editor who published my first book. She did it, as she did all things, with no expectation of reciprocal benefit. These sorts of things are typical of the warmth and kindness she showed to everyone who knew her.

Life is strange. Eden was someone I knew, respected and cared about. I lost touch with her, as with so many others, when we moved to Los Angeles. My life then just didn’t allow for working to stay connected; there were hard things happening and they made it difficult to think outside the immediate circumstances of my life. And so I’m doubly sad as I struggle to write about a woman with such a mind, and a spirit, and a heart.

I’m comforted to know, though, that she had friends and family around her, supportive and caring, in her last days. That’s no surprise; it’s what she offered so many others.

RERUN – A GREAT REPUBLICAN: Farewell to Jack Kemp, a Fine Gentleman

This good looking guy, football star of the early 60’s, is Jack Kemp – congressman, vice-presidential and presidential candidate and a fine man. He died of cancer Saturday at 73, universally respected and, by many, loved. If you read this blog you know that I’m anything but a conservative, so this isn’t a political meditation; it’s an appreciation of a good guy.

When I think of Kemp, whom I met several times during his various campaigns, I see the same picture. It’s Inauguration Weekend for the first George Bush, and there’s a huge youth rally at the National Armory in Washington. I’m there for the Today Show, filming the teenagers practically hanging from the rafters, excited and waiting for the speakers to show up.

There are lots of them, holding forth in various ways about the new administration and all it would do. Finally, Kemp, the soon-to-be Secretary of HUD, Housing and Urban Development, arrived, and gave a sweet, unpretentious talk. Then, football hero that he was, he knew how to handle this young and happy crowd. Producing a football, he drew his arm back, ball in hand, and threw the ball far into the crowd, to enormous applause. It was wonderful.

After his years in the Bush Administration, he continued to act on his values: the need for extra opportunity for those held behind, and for justice. In the years of fierce immigration battles in the 90’s, he opposed California’s cruel anti-immigration Proposition 187, jeopardizing his own political future, and took strong positions on the concept of opportunity for those whose futures seemed bleak. Kemp was an economic conservative and all that that entailed, and also a caring, committed American. He proved it’s possible to be both. I’ve always admired him, and I wanted to say so, and wish him Godspeed. The is a portion of a (long) letter to his (17) grandchildren shortly after the 2008 election:

My first thought last week upon learning that a 47-year-old African-American Democrat had won the presidency was, “Is this a great country or not?”

You may have expected your grandfather to be disappointed that his friend John McCain lost (and I was), but there’s a difference between disappointment over a lost election and the historical perspective of a monumental event in the life of our nation.

Let me explain. First of all, the election was free, fair and transformational, in terms of our democracy and given the history of race relations in our nation.

What do I mean?

Just think, a little over 40 years ago, blacks in America had trouble even voting in our country, much less thinking about running for the highest office in the land.

A little over 40 years ago, in some parts of America, blacks couldn’t eat, sleep or even get a drink of water using facilities available to everyone else in the public sphere.

We are celebrating, this year, the 40th anniversary of our Fair Housing Laws, which helped put an end to the blatant racism and prejudice against blacks in rental housing and homeownership opportunities.

As an old professional football quarterback, in my days there were no black coaches, no black quarterbacks, and certainly no blacks in the front offices of football and other professional sports. For the record, there were great black quarterbacks and coaches — they just weren’t given the opportunity to showcase their talent. And pro-football (and America) was the worse off for it.

I remember quarterbacking the old San Diego Chargers and playing for the AFL championship in Houston. My father sat on the 50-yard line, while my co-captain’s father, who happened to be black, had to sit in a small, roped-off section of the end zone. Today, we can’t imagine the NFL without the amazing contributions of blacks at every level of this great enterprise.

I could go on and on, but just imagine that in the face of all these indignities and deprivations, Dr. Martin Luther King could say 44 years ago, “I have an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in mankind.” He described his vision for America, even as he and his people were being denied their God-given human rights guaranteed under our Constitution.

You see, real leadership is not just seeing the realities of what we are temporarily faced with, but seeing the possibilities and potential that can be realized by lifting up peoples’ vision of what they can be.

When President-elect Obama quoted Abraham Lincoln on the night of his election, he was acknowledging the transcendent qualities of vision and leadership that are always present, but often overlooked and neglected by pettiness, partisanship and petulance. . . .

My advice for you all is to understand that unity for our nation doesn’t require uniformity or unanimity; it does require putting the good of our people ahead of what’s good for mere political or personal advantage.

Kemp was a fierce economic conservative. AND a true believer in the promise of our country. There is no Republican candidate who offers that kind of moral, ethical and political leadership today. We could really use him.

Farewell to Judith Krug – and Thanks from All of Us (Readers, Libarians, Kids, Computer Users and Gamers — Yes, Gamers)

You’re looking at a heroine here, a tireless advocate of “freedom to read” and the First Amendment. Her name is Judith Krug, known to many as “Judy” and a brave and wonderful woman. As Director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom since it was founded in 1967, she also founded “Banned Books Week” in 1982. That’s how I met her.

I’d done stories before about First Amendment issues and someone gave her my number. She called to tell me that the last week of September, 1982, would be the first ALA Banned Books Week and wouldn’t the Today Show like to cover it? Of course we would. Look at some of the most banned books over the years – here in the US! Surprising at best, eh? They include Harry Potter, Huck Finn, Of Mice and Men, The Catcher in the Rye and Kaffir Boy. Appalled by the list, I remember starting the piece with film of the Nazi book burnings in Berlin. Judy loved it!

In the years since 1982 we repeated the story almost every year — and every year new books joined the list. Not always from the right, either. Some liberal parents challenged Huckleberry Finn as racist, and the other ban efforts came from all over the place! Harry Potter as Satanism, Native Son because it put the death penalty in dispute and the Bible preaches “an eye for an eye,” Wrinkle in Time, Understood Alice and others by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, The House of Spirits, Slaughterhouse-Five and Lord of the Flies.

But banned books were far from her only concern. As the Chicago Tribute wrote:

Mrs. Krug worked directly with librarians across the country who were engaged in censorship battles. She enlisted allies from fields that are
affected by 1st Amendment attacks such as publishers and journalists,
said Robert Doyle, executive director of the Illinois Library
Association.
“She was concerned about the gamut of expression,
so that people could go to the library and encounter the full
marketplace of ideas,” Doyle said.

Beyond books was her opposition to filters on library computers and her less-noticed championing of free expression in video games. A Game Politics piece includes this:

Judith was instrumental in the fight against video game censorship. She was a forceful advocate for Media Coalition amicus
briefs in the Indianapolis, St. Louis, Illinois, Minnesota, and
California video game cases. It would have been easy for the librarians
to say, “That’s not our battle,” but thankfully that wasn’t Judith’s
temperament.

Judith was a fierce believer in the importance of
freedom of expression to our culture and our society and was zealous
defender of the First Amendment. We all have truly benefited from her
passion.

Judy died on April 11th. She leaves a family who will miss her, I’m sure. But she leaves a legacy for the rest of us too, one for which we should be grateful. Anyone who loves to read, who wants to be able to ask a librarian for a special book for a quirky kid, who wants to use the library computer to do research or read off-the-wall news stories, or who just loves to wander in the stacks or online looking for something that never occurred to them, or a special idea or book or website — we’ll miss her too.

Farewell to A True Anti-Apartheid (and Jewish) Hero(ine) of South Africa: Helen Suzman

Nobody ate lobster tail at our house, or bought anything else that came from South Africa, even way back in the 50’s, . Well before Randall Robinson’s TransAfrica or Steve Van Zandt’s Sun City (see below**), my mother was actively boycotting the apartheid regime. Despite her generally moderate liberal perspective, she was fierce about this and created my own boycott habit, something that drove my kids crazy all the years that they drank Ovaltine while their friends got Nestle Quick. (That’s another story though.)

Of course anyone back then who knew about South Africa or read Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country understood the horror of it, but barely anyone talked about it, or demanded action from their own countries. So why was this the issue that set fire to my mom?

Helen Suzman*, who died on New Year’s Day at the age of 91, was the reason. For years she stood as the only anti-apartheid voice in the entire South African Parliament – for six of those years as the only woman as well.The Jewish wife of a well-to-do physician, she entered politics, visited Mandela in prison, stood and spoke, often alone, for the end of apartheid and all that it stood for. Because she was brave, and because, like so many early white activists there, she was Jewish, her often solitary and always dangerous crusade was a matter of particular pride to many Jewish women, my mother among them. Her powerful example was a foreshadowing of much that came later. By the time I was in college, friends were lying in at the doors of Chemical Bank to demand divestiture – removal of American funds from South African investments. By the 80’s daily demonstrations, and arrests, outside the DC South African embassy kept a drumbeat of attention on the issue. It took until February of 1990 for Mandela to be released from prison, granting great credit to Ms. Suzman, who later stood at his side as he signed the new constitution.

How interesting that one of the earliest moral political lessons I learned came from the courage of a woman half way around the world, not only because of her courage and effectiveness but also because of her faith. We speak so casually of “role models” these days, but when there is a true model of how to live, the impact is enormous. I’ve known that for a long time, and as I watched Barack Obama tell city kids he visited on Thanksgiving eve that ” You guys might end being the president some day” I thought it again.

Ms. Suzman’s example multiplied her power: not only did she stand alone for change when such a stand was desperately needed, she also taught all those who watched her that they could stand too, that just as her stands gave birth to theirs, their own actions multiplied the impact of hers. As we enter this new year, with so much ahead of us, it’s something we would do well to remember – and live by.
*Here’s an interview with Ms. Suzman

**Here’s the 1985 video from “Miami Steve” and artists from Herbie Hancock to Pat Benetar and Bonnie Raitt to Lou Reed and The Boss himself.