25 Facts About Tom Kahn

Tom Kahn was an activist and influential strategist in the Civil Rights Movement.

Tom Kahn was a senior adviser and leader in the US labor movement.

Tom Kahn was born Thomas John Marcel on September 15,1938, and was immediately placed for adoption at the New York Foundling Hospital.

Tom Kahn was adopted by the Jewish couple Adele and David Kahn, and renamed Thomas David Kahn.

Tom Kahn was a civil libertarian who "ran for president of the Student Organization of Erasmus Hall High School in 1955 on a platform calling for the destruction of the student assembly, because it had no power", an election he lost.

Tom Kahn idolized Harrington, particularly for his erudition and rhetoric, both in writing and in debate.

Tom Kahn helped Rustin organize the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage to Washington and the 1958 and 1959 Youth March for Integrated Schools.

Tom Kahn had a short relationship with a member of the Young People's Socialist League :.

Tom Kahn introduced me to Bach and Brahms, and to the importance of maintaining a balance in life between the pursuit of our individual pleasures and engagements in, and responsibility for, the social condition.

Tom Kahn believed that no class, caste or genre of people were exempt from this obligation.

Tom Kahn worked closely with Stokely Carmichael, who later became a national leader of young civil-rights activists and then one of the leaders of the Black Power movement.

Tom Kahn introduced Carmichael and his fellow SNCC activists to Bayard Rustin, who became an influential adviser to SNCC.

Tom Kahn was Director of the League for Industrial Democracy after 1964.

Tom Kahn was listed as a student representative from Howard University and was elected to the National Executive Committee.

Tom Kahn believed that the SDS students were "elitist", being overly critical of labor unions and liberals, and attributed upper-class origins and Ivy-league schooling to them, according to Port-Huron activist Todd Gitlin, who observes that Tom Kahn was the son of a "manual laborer".

Nonetheless Tom Kahn continued to argue with SDS leaders about the need for accountable leadership, about tactics, and about strategy.

Tom Kahn's determined style of debate emerged from the socialist movement led by Max Shachtman.

Tom Kahn expressed his admiration for Shachtman's intellectual toughness in his 1973 memorial:.

Tom Kahn theorized that to be either, you had to be both.

Tom Kahn was an effective speechwriter because he was able to express ideas to an American audience, according to Wattenberg.

Tom Kahn's proposal was rejected by the majority, who criticized the war's conduct and called for a negotiated peace treaty, the position associated with Shachtman and Kahn.

In testimony to the Joint Congressional Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Tom Kahn suggested policies to support the Polish people, in particular by supporting Solidarity's demand that the Communist regime finally establish legality, by respecting the twenty-one rights guaranteed by the Polish constitution.

Tom Kahn longed to spend his remaining years with his "new and most beloved partner", who was "the love of his life".

Tom Kahn warned his co-workers that his terminal condition would bring intellectual degeneration, and asked that they monitor him for signs of debilitation.

Tom Kahn was survived by his partner and his sister and his niece.