22 Facts About David McReynolds

David Ernest McReynolds was an American politician and social activist who was a prominent democratic socialist and pacifist activist.

David McReynolds described himself as "a peace movement bureaucrat" during his 40-year career with the War Resisters League.

David Ernest McReynolds was born in Los Angeles to Elizabeth Grace, a nurse, and Lt.

David McReynolds was openly gay and wrote his first article about living as a gay man in 1969.

David McReynolds became a member of the Prohibition Party in 1946 or 1947 due to his upbringing as a fundamentalist Baptist, but left the party around the same time that it expelled its entire youth section for being communist.

David McReynolds became a pacifist in 1949, and attended a pacifist youth conference in Europe in the same year during which he realized that he was homosexual and became an atheist.

David McReynolds attended UCLA and graduated in 1953, and during his education he was arrested for refusing to serve in the Korean War, but the charges were dismissed.

David McReynolds was elected to the National Committee of the Socialist Party in 1954.

David McReynolds was staunchly anti-war and a draft resister, and in 1960 joined the staff of the War Resisters League, where he remained until his retirement in 1999.

That same month, November 1965, David McReynolds was one of five men who publicly burned their draft cards at an anti-war demonstration at Union Square in New York.

David McReynolds was close friends with Bayard Rustin and other prominent peace activists, as well as literary figures such as Quentin Crisp.

The smallest and the most left wing faction of the SPA, known as the Debs Caucus, including David McReynolds, formed the Socialist Party USA.

David McReynolds was long a member of both DSA and SPUSA.

David McReynolds's widely read pamphlet, The Philosophy of Nonviolence, provides a unique window into the mind of a lifelong activist wrestling with the contradictions and pitfalls which plagued the political left in the 20th century.

David McReynolds concluded that a brand of pacifist-socialism is best suited for future socialist experiments since it offers the greatest opportunity to prefigure the kinds of democratic relations necessary to create a functional and free society.

David McReynolds received more votes than Frank Zeidler, the party's presidential nominee in the 1976 presidential election, in every state except for Wisconsin which McReynolds stated was due to Zeidler's name recognition in the state.

David McReynolds was given the party's presidential nomination again during the 2000 election.

In January 2015, the Socialist Party USA's National Committee voted to censure David McReynolds over alleged racist comments made on social media regarding the Charlie Hebdo shooting and shooting of Michael Brown.

David McReynolds was active politically until just before his death, attending meetings, speaking in classrooms, being interviewed for films and research, and participating in peace, justice, antiwar, and antinuclear actions.

David McReynolds was an avid photographer throughout his adult life and spent time during the last three years of his life sorting his collection of more than 50,000 photos.

In 2015, David McReynolds endorsed US Senator Bernie Sanders for President of the United States, praising him as a "serious candidate" and for not personally attacking his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

David McReynolds died on August 17,2018, aged 88, following a fall he sustained at his New York City home.