Tom Kahn
Encyclopedia
Tom David Kahn was an American social democrat
known for his leadership in other organizations. He was an activist and influential strategist in the African-American civil-rights movement. He was a senior adviser and leader in the U.S. labor movement
.
Kahn was raised in New York City
. At Brooklyn College
, he joined the U.S. socialist movement, where he was influenced by Max Shachtman
and Michael Harrington
. As an assistant to civil-rights leader Bayard Rustin
, Kahn helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, during which Martin Luther King delivered his I have a dream
speech. Kahn's analysis of the civil-rights movement influenced Bayard Rustin (who was the nominal author of Kahn's "From protest to politics").
A leader in the Socialist Party of America
, Kahn supported its 1972 name-change to Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA). Like other leaders of SDUSA, Kahn worked to support free labor-unions and democracy and to oppose Soviet communism; he also worked to strengthen U.S. labor unions. Kahn worked as a senior assistant to and speech-writer for Democratic Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, AFL–CIO Presidents George Meany and Lane Kirkland, and other leaders of the Democratic Party
, labor unions, and civil-rights organizations.
In 1980 Lane Kirkland appointed Kahn to organize the AFL–CIO support for the Polish labor-union Solidarity; this support was made despite protests by the USSR and the Carter administration. He acted as the Director of the AFL–CIO Department of International Affairs
in 1986 and was officially named Director in 1989. Tom Kahn died in 1992, at the age of 53.
. He was adopted by Adele and David Kahn. His dad, David Kahn, a member of the Communist Party USA
, became President of the Transport Workers
Local 101 of the Brooklyn Union Gas Company.
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. It was the truth and he wanted to expose it. He lost the election." In high school, he met Rachelle Horowitz, who would become his life-long friend and political ally.
(CUNY), the undergraduate students Kahn and Horowitz joined the U.S. movement for democratic socialism
after hearing Max Shachtman denounce the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary: Shachtman described
As young socialists, Kahn's and Horowitz's talents were recognized by Michael Harrington
. Harrington had joined Shachtman after working with Dorothy Day
's Catholic Worker
's house of hospitality
in the Bowery
of Lower Manhattan
. Harrington was about to became famous in the United States for his book on poverty in the United States
, The Other America
. Kahn idolized Harrington, particularly for his erudition and rhetoric, both in writing and in debate.
, one of the leaders of the movement for African-American civil-rights movement, who became a mentor to Kahn. Kahn and Horowitz were affectionately called the "Bayard Rustin Marching and Chowder Society" by Harrington.
Kahn helped Rustin organize the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage to Washington and the 1958 and 1959 Youth March for Integrated Schools.
:
Tom Kahn was "very good looking, a very attractive guy" according to longtime socialist David McReynolds, who is also an openly gay New Yorker. Kahn accepted his homosexuality
in 1956, the year that Kahn and Horowitz volunteered to help Bayard Rustin with his work in the civil-rights movement. "Once he met Bayard [Rustin], then Kahn knew that he was gay and had this long-term relationship with Bayard, which went through many stages", according to Horowitz, who quoted Kahn's remembrance of Rustin:
However, cohabiting in Rustin's apartment proved unsuccessful, and their romantic relationship ended when Kahn enrolled in historically black Howard University. Kahn and Rustin remained life-long friends and political comrades.
, who later became a national leader of young civil-rights activists and then one of the leaders of the Black Power
movement. Kahn and Carmichael helped to fund a five-day run of Three Penny Opera, by the Marxist playwright Berthold Brecht and the socialist composer Kurt Weill
: "Tom Kahn—very shrewdly—had captured the position of Treasurer of the Liberal Arts Student Council and the infinitely charismatic and popular Carmichael as floor whip was good at lining up the votes. Before they knew what hit them the Student Council had become a patron of the arts, having voted to buy out the remaining performances." Kahn and Carmichael worked with Howard University
's chapter of Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC). Kahn introduced his Carmichael and his fellow SNCC activists to Bayard Rustin, who became an influential adviser to SNCC. Kahn and Rustin's emphasis on economic inequality influenced Carmichael. Kahn graduated from Howard in 1961.
) helped Rustin and A. Philip Randolph to plan the 1963 March on Washington, at which Martin Luther King, Jr.
delivered his "I have a dream
" speech. For this march, Kahn also ghost wrote
the speech of A. Philip Randolph, the senior leader of the civil-rights movement and the African-American labor movement. Kahn's analysis of the civil-rights movement influenced Bayard Rustin (who was the nominal author of Kahn's 1964–1965 essay "From protest to politics"), Stokely Carmichael
, and William Julius Wilson.
after 1964. Beginning in 1960, he wrote several LID pamphlets, many of which were published in political journals like Dissent
and Commentary
, and some of which appeared in anthologies. Kahn's The Economics of Equality LID pamphlet gave an "incisive radical analysis of what it would take to end racial oppression".
(SDS). Along with other LID members Rachelle Horowitz, Michael Harrington
, and Don Slaiman, Kahn attended the LID-sponsored meeting that discussed the Port Huron Statement
. Kahn was listed as a student representative from Howard University and was elected to the National Executive Committee. The LID representatives criticized the Port Huron Statement
for promoting students as leaders of social change, for criticizing the U.S. labor movement and its unions, and for its criticisms of liberal and socialist opposition to Soviet communism ("anti-communism
"). 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 Kahn was the son of a "manual laborer".
LID and SDS split in 1965, when SDS voted to remove from its constitution the "exclusion clause" that prohibited membership by communists, against Kahn's arguments. The SDS exclusion clause had barred "advocates of or apologists for" "totalitarianism
". The clause's removal effectively invited "disciplined cadre" to attempt to "take over or paralyze" SDS, as had occurred to mass organizations
in the thirties. Afterward, Marxism Leninism, particularly the Progressive Labor Party, helped to write "the death sentence" for SDS. Nonetheless Kahn continued to argue with SDS leaders about the need for accountable leadership, about tactics, and about strategy. In 1966, Kahn attended the Illinois Convention of SDS, where his forceful arguments and delivery overwhelmed and were resented by the other activists; Kahn was then 28 years old.
Kahn's determined style of debate emerged from the socialist movement led by Max Shachtman
. Kahn expressed his admiration for Shachtman's intellectual toughness in his 1973 memorial:
"His answers, of course, could not always be correct. But they were on target and always fundamental."
, and supported its change of name to Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA), despite Harrington's opposition.
Ben Wattenberg commented that SDUSA members seemed to be
Kahn worked as a senior assistant and speech-writer for Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, AFL–CIO Presidents George Meany
and Lane Kirkland
, and other leaders of the Democratic Party
, labor unions, and civil rights organizations. He was an effective speech-writer because he was able to express ideas to an American audience, according to Wattenberg.
, called for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam in 1972. His proposal was rejected by the majority, who criticized the war's conduct and call for a negotiated peace treaty, the position associated with Shachtman and Kahn. Harrington resigned his honorary chairmanship of the Socialist Party
and organized a caucus for like-minded socialists.
The conflict between Kahn and Harrington became "pretty bad", according to Irving Howe
.
Harrington handed former SDS activist and New York City journalist Jack Newfield
a speech by AFL–CIO President George Meany
. Addressing the September 1972 Convention of the United Steelworkers of America, Meany ridiculed the Democratic Party Convention, which had been held in Miami:
taunt was attributed to Kahn by Harrington, and repeated by Newfield in his autobiography. Maurice Isserman
's biography of Harrington also described this speech as Kahn's self hatred, as "Kahn's resort to gay bashing".
The blaming of Kahn for Meany's speech and Isserman's scholarship have been criticized by Rachelle Horowitz, Kahn's friend, and by Joshua Muravchik
, then an officer of the Young People's Socialist League (1907)
. According to Horowitz, Meany had many speech-writers—two specialists besides Kahn and even more writers from the AFL–CIO's Committee on Political Education (COPE) Department. Horowitz stated, "It is in fact inconceivable that Kahn wrote those words" She quoted a concurring assessment from Arch Puddington: [Isserman] "assumes that because Kahn was not publicly gay he had to be a gay basher. He never was." According to Muravchik, "there is no reason to believe that Kahn wrote those lines, and Isserman presents none."
Harrington failed to support an anti-discrimination (gay rights) plank in the 1978 platform
of the Democratic Party Convention, but noted his personal support after being criticized in The Nation. Along with others in the AFL–CIO and SDUSA, Kahn was accused of criticizing Harrington's application for his Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee
to join the Socialist International
and to organize a 1983 conference on European socialism; Harrington complained for six pages in his autobiography The Long Distance Runner, and "brooded" about Kahn's opposition, exaggerating the importance of the Socialist International to America, according to Isserman's biography. In 1991, even after Harrington's 1989 death, Howe warned Harrington's biographer, Maurice Isserman
, that Kahn's description of Harrington "may well be a little nasty" and "hard line".
declared martial law
in December 1981.
In 1980 AFL–CIO President Lane Kirkland
appointed Kahn to organize the AFL–CIO's support of Solidarity. The AFL–CIO sought approval in advance from Solidarity's leadership, to avoid jeopardizing their position with unwanted or surprising American help. Politically, the AFL–CIO supported the twenty-one demands of the Gdansk workers
, by lobbying to stop further U.S. loans to Poland unless those demands were met. Materially, the AFL–CIO established the Polish Workers Aid Fund, which raised almost $300,000 by 1981. These funds purchased printing presses, and office supplies. The AFL–CIO donated typewriters, duplicating machines, a minibus, an offset press, and other supplies requested by Solidarity.
In testimony to the Joint Congressional Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 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
.
The AFL–CIO's support enraged the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and worried the Carter Administration, whose Secretary of State Edmund Muskie
told Kirkland that the AFL–CIO's continued support of solidarity could trigger a Soviet invasion of Poland. After Kirkland refused to withdraw support to Solidarity, Muskie met with the USSR's Ambassador, Anatoly Dobyrnin, to clarify that the AFL–CIO's aid did not have the support of the U.S. government. Aid to Solidarity was also initially opposed by neo-conservatives Norman Podhoretz
and Jeanne Kirkpatrick, who before 1982 argued that communism could not be overthrown and that Solidarity was doomed.
The AFL–CIO's autonomous support of Solidarity was so successful that by 1984 both Democrats and Republicans agreed that it deserved public support. The AFL–CIO's example of open support was deemed to be appropriate for a democracy, and much more suitable than the clandestine funding through the CIA that had occurred before 1970. Both parties and President Ronald Reagan supported a non-governmental organization, National Endowment for Democracy
(NED), through which Congress would openly fund Solidarity through an allocation in the State Department's budget, beginning in 1984. The NED was designed with four core institutions, associated with the two major parties and with the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
(representing business). The NED's first president was Carl Gershman
, a former Director of Social Democrats, USA and former U.S. Representative to the United Nations committee on human rights. From 1984 through 1990, the NED and the AFL–CIO channeled 4 million dollars worth of equipment and support to Solidarity.
Kahn acted as Director of the AFL–CIO Department of International Affairs
in 1986, after Irving Brown
suffered a stroke and resigned that same year; after Brown's death in 1989, Kahn was officially named the Director. He accepted the responsibility in 1986.
), "which was then a death sentence". Kahn longed to spend his remaining years with his "new and most beloved partner", who was "the love of his life". However, Kahn accepted the office of Director out of a feeling of duty, knowing that he was taking "a job that would most surely work him to death". He warned his co-workers that his terminal condition would bring intellectual degeneration, and asked that they monitor him for signs of debilitation. An upgrade of the computer systems of the International Department was to have allowed Kahn to work from home.
Tom Kahn died from acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS
) in Silver Spring, Maryland
on March 27, 1992, at the age of 53, after having been cared for by his partner and supported by his friends and colleagues. He was survived by his partner and also his sister and his niece. Kahn planned most of his own memorial service, which was held in the AFL–CIO headquarters.
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
known for his leadership in other organizations. He was an activist and influential strategist in the African-American civil-rights movement. He was a senior adviser and leader in the U.S. labor movement
Labor unions in the United States
Labor unions in the United States are legally recognized as representatives of workers in many industries. The most prominent unions are among public sector employees such as teachers and police...
.
Kahn was raised in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. At Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...
, he joined the U.S. socialist movement, where he was influenced by Max Shachtman
Max Shachtman
Max Shachtman was an American Marxist theorist. He evolved from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL-CIO President George Meany.-Beginnings:...
and Michael Harrington
Michael Harrington
Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington was an American democratic socialist, writer, political activist, professor of political science, radio commentator and founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Personal life:...
. As an assistant to civil-rights leader Bayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, pacifism and non-violence, and gay rights.In the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation , Rustin practiced nonviolence...
, Kahn helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, during which Martin Luther King delivered his I have a dream
I Have a Dream
"I Have a Dream" is a 17-minute public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered on August 28, 1963, in which he called for racial equality and an end to discrimination...
speech. Kahn's analysis of the civil-rights movement influenced Bayard Rustin (who was the nominal author of Kahn's "From protest to politics").
A leader in the Socialist Party of America
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
, Kahn supported its 1972 name-change to Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA). Like other leaders of SDUSA, Kahn worked to support free labor-unions and democracy and to oppose Soviet communism; he also worked to strengthen U.S. labor unions. Kahn worked as a senior assistant to and speech-writer for Democratic Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, AFL–CIO Presidents George Meany and Lane Kirkland, and other leaders of the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
, labor unions, and civil-rights organizations.
In 1980 Lane Kirkland appointed Kahn to organize the AFL–CIO support for the Polish labor-union Solidarity; this support was made despite protests by the USSR and the Carter administration. He acted as the Director of the AFL–CIO Department of International Affairs
American Center for International Labor Solidarity
The American Center for International Labor Solidarity , better known as theSolidarity Center, is a non-profit organization affiliated with the AFL-CIO labor federation that serves as a conduit for US foreign aid....
in 1986 and was officially named Director in 1989. Tom Kahn died in 1992, at the age of 53.
Early life
Kahn was born 15 September 1938 and was immediately placed for adoption at the New York Foundling HospitalFoundling hospital
A foundling hospital was originally an institution for the reception of foundlings, i.e., children who had been abandoned or exposed, and left for the public to find and save...
. He was adopted by Adele and David Kahn. His dad, David Kahn, a member of the Communist Party USA
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
, became President of the Transport Workers
Transport Workers Union of America
Transport Workers Union of America is a United States labor union that was founded in 1934 by subway workers in New York City, then expanded to represent transit employees in other cities, primarily in the eastern U.S. This article discusses the parent union and its largest local, Local 100,...
Local 101 of the Brooklyn Union Gas Company.
Tom Kahn was a civil libertarian who "ran for president of the Student Organization of Erasmus Hall High School
Erasmus Hall High School
Erasmus Hall Campus High School is a four-year public high school in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, United States operated by the New York City Department of Education....
in 1955 on a platform calling for the destruction of the student assembly, because it had no power. It was the truth and he wanted to expose it. He lost the election." In high school, he met Rachelle Horowitz, who would become his life-long friend and political ally.
Democratic socialism
At Brooklyn CollegeBrooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...
(CUNY), the undergraduate students Kahn and Horowitz joined the U.S. movement for democratic socialism
Democratic socialism
Democratic socialism is a description used by various socialist movements and organizations to emphasize the democratic character of their political orientation...
after hearing Max Shachtman denounce the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary: Shachtman described
rolling Russian
tanks, ... defenceless Hungarian workers and students fighting back with stones,
... a heroic people’s crushed hopes, and ... our democratic socialist links to those
hopes. Freedom, democracy—they were not abstractions; they were real and could
therefore be destroyed. Communist totalitarianism was not merely a political force,
an ideological aberration that could be smashed in debate; it was a monstrous
physical force. Democracy was not merely the icing on the socialist cake. It was
the cake—or there was no socialism worth fighting for.
As young socialists, Kahn's and Horowitz's talents were recognized by Michael Harrington
Michael Harrington
Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington was an American democratic socialist, writer, political activist, professor of political science, radio commentator and founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Personal life:...
. Harrington had joined Shachtman after working with Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and devout Catholic convert; she advocated the Catholic economic theory of Distributism. She was also considered to be an anarchist, and did not hesitate to use the term...
's Catholic Worker
Catholic Worker
The Catholic Worker is a newspaper published seven times a year by the Catholic Worker Movement community in New York City. The newspaper was started by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin to make people aware of church teaching on social justice...
's house of hospitality
House of hospitality
A house of hospitality is an organization to provide shelter, and often food and clothing, to those who need it. Originally part of the Catholic Worker Movement, houses of hospitality have been run by other organizations, including organizations that are not Catholic or Christian...
in the Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
of Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City of New York...
. Harrington was about to became famous in the United States for his book on poverty in the United States
Poverty in the United States
Poverty is defined as the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. According to the U.S. Census Bureau data released Tuesday September 13th, 2011, the nation's poverty rate rose to 15.1% in 2010, up from 14.3% in 2009 and to its highest level...
, The Other America
The Other America
Michael Harrington’s book The Other America was an influential study of poverty in the United States, published in 1962 by Macmillan. A widely read review, "Our Invisible Poor," in The New Yorker by Dwight Macdonald brought the book to the attention of President John F. Kennedy.The Other America...
. Kahn idolized Harrington, particularly for his erudition and rhetoric, both in writing and in debate.
Civil rights
As a leader of the American socialist movement, Michael Harrington sent Tom Kahn and Rachelle Horowitz to help Bayard RustinBayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, pacifism and non-violence, and gay rights.In the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation , Rustin practiced nonviolence...
, one of the leaders of the movement for African-American civil-rights movement, who became a mentor to Kahn. Kahn and Horowitz were affectionately called the "Bayard Rustin Marching and Chowder Society" by Harrington.
Kahn helped Rustin organize the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage to Washington and the 1958 and 1959 Youth March for Integrated Schools.
Homosexuality and Bayard Rustin
As a young man, Tom Kahn "was gay but wanted to be straight .... It was a different world then", according to Rachelle Horowitz. He had a short relationship with a member of the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL)Young People's Socialist League (1907)
The Young People's Socialist League , founded in 1907, was the official youth arm of the Socialist Party of America. Its political activities tend to concentrate on increasing the voter turnout of young democratic socialists and affecting the issues impacting that demographic group.- Foundation and...
:
Although everyone active in the movement was aware of it, [before 1956] he was never explicitly out of the closet. He took his sexual orientation as an affliction, a source of pain and embarrassment. In part, perhaps, because he was so unreconciled to his longings, he limited himself for a long time to brief encounters. But then he became involved with one of the YPSL’s and was compelled to seek the counsel of a psychiatrist to explain his unfamiliar feelings. The diagnosis, he told me, was “you’re in love.”
Tom Kahn was "very good looking, a very attractive guy" according to longtime socialist David McReynolds, who is also an openly gay New Yorker. Kahn accepted his homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
in 1956, the year that Kahn and Horowitz volunteered to help Bayard Rustin with his work in the civil-rights movement. "Once he met Bayard [Rustin], then Kahn knew that he was gay and had this long-term relationship with Bayard, which went through many stages", according to Horowitz, who quoted Kahn's remembrance of Rustin:
When I met him for the first time he was a few years younger than I am now, and I was barely on the edge of manhood. He drew me into a vortex of his endless campaigns and projects .... He 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. He believed that no class, caste or genre of people were exempt from this obligation.
However, cohabiting in Rustin's apartment proved unsuccessful, and their romantic relationship ended when Kahn enrolled in historically black Howard University. Kahn and Rustin remained life-long friends and political comrades.
Howard University
Kahn, a white student, enrolled for his junior and senior years at Howard University, where he became a leader in student politics. Kahn worked closely with Stokely CarmichaelStokely Carmichael
Kwame Ture , also known as Stokely Carmichael, was a Trinidadian-American black activist active in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. He rose to prominence first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party...
, who later became a national leader of young civil-rights activists and then one of the leaders of the Black Power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
movement. Kahn and Carmichael helped to fund a five-day run of Three Penny Opera, by the Marxist playwright Berthold Brecht and the socialist composer Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
: "Tom Kahn—very shrewdly—had captured the position of Treasurer of the Liberal Arts Student Council and the infinitely charismatic and popular Carmichael as floor whip was good at lining up the votes. Before they knew what hit them the Student Council had become a patron of the arts, having voted to buy out the remaining performances." Kahn and Carmichael worked with Howard University
Howard University
Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...
's chapter of Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ' was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a series of student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 1960...
(SNCC). Kahn introduced his Carmichael and his fellow SNCC activists to Bayard Rustin, who became an influential adviser to SNCC. Kahn and Rustin's emphasis on economic inequality influenced Carmichael. Kahn graduated from Howard in 1961.
Leadership
Kahn (along with Horowitz and Norman HillNorman Hill
Norman Hill is an influential African-American administrator, activist and labor leader. He attended Haverford College in Pennsylvania and received a bachelor’s degree in 1956 in the field of sociology. He was one of the first African-Americans to graduate from Haverford. After college, Hill...
) helped Rustin and A. Philip Randolph to plan the 1963 March on Washington, at which Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...
delivered his "I have a dream
I Have a Dream
"I Have a Dream" is a 17-minute public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered on August 28, 1963, in which he called for racial equality and an end to discrimination...
" speech. For this march, Kahn also ghost wrote
Ghostwriter
A ghostwriter is a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, reports, or other texts that are officially credited to another person. Celebrities, executives, and political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, magazine articles, or other written...
the speech of A. Philip Randolph, the senior leader of the civil-rights movement and the African-American labor movement. Kahn's analysis of the civil-rights movement influenced Bayard Rustin (who was the nominal author of Kahn's 1964–1965 essay "From protest to politics"), Stokely Carmichael
Stokely Carmichael
Kwame Ture , also known as Stokely Carmichael, was a Trinidadian-American black activist active in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. He rose to prominence first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party...
, and William Julius Wilson.
League for Industrial Democracy
Kahn was Director of the League for Industrial DemocracyLeague for Industrial Democracy
The League for Industrial Democracy , from 1960-1965 known as the Students for a Democratic Society , was founded in 1905 by a group of notable socialists including Harry W. Laidler, Jack London, Norman Thomas, Upton Sinclair, and J.G. Phelps Stokes...
after 1964. Beginning in 1960, he wrote several LID pamphlets, many of which were published in political journals like Dissent
Dissent (magazine)
Dissent is a quarterly magazine focusing on politics and culture edited by Michael Walzer and Michael Kazin. The magazine is published for the Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas, Inc by the University of Pennsylvania Press....
and Commentary
Commentary (magazine)
Commentary is a monthly American magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues. It was founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, a liberal at the time who moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s becoming a strong voice for the...
, and some of which appeared in anthologies. Kahn's The Economics of Equality LID pamphlet gave an "incisive radical analysis of what it would take to end racial oppression".
Student League for Industrial Democracy: Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
Before Kahn became LID director in 1964, Kahn was involved with the Student League for Industrial Democracy, which became Students for a Democratic SocietyStudents for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
(SDS). Along with other LID members Rachelle Horowitz, Michael Harrington
Michael Harrington
Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington was an American democratic socialist, writer, political activist, professor of political science, radio commentator and founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Personal life:...
, and Don Slaiman, Kahn attended the LID-sponsored meeting that discussed the Port Huron Statement
Port Huron Statement
The Port Huron Statement is the manifesto of the American student activist movement Students for a Democratic Society , written primarily by Tom Hayden, then the Field Secretary of SDS, and completed on June 15, 1962 at an SDS convention at what is now a state park in Lakeport, Michigan, a...
. Kahn was listed as a student representative from Howard University and was elected to the National Executive Committee. The LID representatives criticized the Port Huron Statement
Port Huron Statement
The Port Huron Statement is the manifesto of the American student activist movement Students for a Democratic Society , written primarily by Tom Hayden, then the Field Secretary of SDS, and completed on June 15, 1962 at an SDS convention at what is now a state park in Lakeport, Michigan, a...
for promoting students as leaders of social change, for criticizing the U.S. labor movement and its unions, and for its criticisms of liberal and socialist opposition to Soviet communism ("anti-communism
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
"). 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
Todd Gitlin
Todd Gitlin is an American sociologist, political writer, novelist, and cultural commentator. He has written widely on the mass media, politics, intellectual life and the arts, for both popular and scholarly publications.-New Left activist:...
, who observes that Kahn was the son of a "manual laborer".
LID and SDS split in 1965, when SDS voted to remove from its constitution the "exclusion clause" that prohibited membership by communists, against Kahn's arguments. The SDS exclusion clause had barred "advocates of or apologists for" "totalitarianism
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
". The clause's removal effectively invited "disciplined cadre" to attempt to "take over or paralyze" SDS, as had occurred to mass organizations
Popular front
A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...
in the thirties. Afterward, Marxism Leninism, particularly the Progressive Labor Party, helped to write "the death sentence" for SDS. Nonetheless Kahn continued to argue with SDS leaders about the need for accountable leadership, about tactics, and about strategy. In 1966, Kahn attended the Illinois Convention of SDS, where his forceful arguments and delivery overwhelmed and were resented by the other activists; Kahn was then 28 years old.
Kahn's determined style of debate emerged from the socialist movement led by Max Shachtman
Max Shachtman
Max Shachtman was an American Marxist theorist. He evolved from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL-CIO President George Meany.-Beginnings:...
. Kahn expressed his admiration for Shachtman's intellectual toughness in his 1973 memorial:
"His answers, of course, could not always be correct. But they were on target and always fundamental."
Social Democrats, USA
Kahn and Horowitz were leaders in the Socialist Party USASocialist Party USA
The Socialist Party USA is a multi-tendency democratic-socialist party in the United States. The party states that it is the rightful continuation and successor to the tradition of the Socialist Party of America, which had lasted from 1901 to 1972.The party is officially committed to left-wing...
, and supported its change of name to Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA), despite Harrington's opposition.
Ben Wattenberg commented that SDUSA members seemed to be
"ingeniously trying to bury the Soviet Union in a blizzard of letterheads. It seemed that each of Tom's colleagues—Penn Kemble, Carl Gershman, Josh Muravchik and many more—ran a little organization, each with the same interlocking directorate listed on the stationery. Funny thing: The Letterhead Lieutenants did indeed churn up a blizzard, and the Soviet Union is no more.
I never did quite get all the organizational acronyms straight—YPSL, LID, SP, SDA, ISL—but the key words were "democratic", "labor", "young" and, until events redefined it away from their understanding, "socialist". Ultimately, the umbrella group became "Social Democrats, U.S.A", and Tom Kahn was a principal "theoretician".
They talked and wrote endlessly, mostly about communism and democracy, despising the former, adoring the latter. It is easy today to say "anti-communist" and "pro-democracy" in the same breath. But that is because American foreign policy eventually became just such a mixture, thanks in part to those "Yipsels" (Young People's Socialist League), with Tom Kahn as provocateur-at-large.
On the conservative side, foreign policy used to be anti-communist, but not very pro-democracy. And foreign policy liberal-style might be piously pro-democracy, but nervous about being anti-communist. Tom theorized that to be either, you had to be both.
It was tough for labor-liberal intellectuals to be "anti-communist" in the 1970s. It meant being taunted as "Cold Warriors" who saw "Commies under every bed" and being labeled as—the unkindest cut—"right-wingers".
Kahn worked as a senior assistant and speech-writer for Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, AFL–CIO Presidents George Meany
George Meany
William George Meany led labor union federations in the United States. As an officer of the American Federation of Labor, he represented the AFL on the National War Labor Board during World War II....
and Lane Kirkland
Lane Kirkland
Joseph Lane Kirkland was a US labor union leader who served as President of the AFL-CIO for over sixteen years.-Biography:...
, and other leaders of the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
, labor unions, and civil rights organizations. He was an effective speech-writer because he was able to express ideas to an American audience, according to Wattenberg.
Estrangement with Harrington
Another protegé of Shachtman's, Michael HarringtonMichael Harrington
Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington was an American democratic socialist, writer, political activist, professor of political science, radio commentator and founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Personal life:...
, called for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam in 1972. His proposal was rejected by the majority, who criticized the war's conduct and call for a negotiated peace treaty, the position associated with Shachtman and Kahn. Harrington resigned his honorary chairmanship of the Socialist Party
Socialist Party
Socialist Party is the name of several different political parties around the world that are explicitly called Socialist. All of these parties claim to uphold socialism, though they might belong to different branches of the socialist movement and might therefore have different interpretations of...
and organized a caucus for like-minded socialists.
The conflict between Kahn and Harrington became "pretty bad", according to Irving Howe
Irving Howe
Irving Howe was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Life and career:...
.
Harrington handed former SDS activist and New York City journalist Jack Newfield
Jack Newfield
Jack Newfield was a muckraking journalist, employed by The Village Voice, the Daily News and the New York Post. He covered the emergence of the New Left and the civil rights movement, and was a close friend of Robert F...
a speech by AFL–CIO President George Meany
George Meany
William George Meany led labor union federations in the United States. As an officer of the American Federation of Labor, he represented the AFL on the National War Labor Board during World War II....
. Addressing the September 1972 Convention of the United Steelworkers of America, Meany ridiculed the Democratic Party Convention, which had been held in Miami:
"We heard from the gay-lib [gay-liberation] people who want to legalize marriage between boys and boys, and between girls and girls. [...] We heard from the people who looked like Jacks, acted like Jills, and had the odor of Johns [customers of prostitutes] about them."This gay-baiting
Gay bashing
Gay bashing and gay bullying is verbal or physical abuse against a person who is perceived to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender . Such abuse is used also to bully heterosexual persons and persons of non-specific or unknown sexual orientation.A "bashing" may be a specific incident, and one...
taunt was attributed to Kahn by Harrington, and repeated by Newfield in his autobiography. Maurice Isserman
Maurice Isserman
Maurice Isserman is James L. Ferguson Professor of History at Hamilton College and an important contributor to the “new history of American communism” which reinterpreted the role of the Communist Party USA during the Popular Front period of the 1930s and 1940s. His books have also traced the...
's biography of Harrington also described this speech as Kahn's self hatred, as "Kahn's resort to gay bashing".
The blaming of Kahn for Meany's speech and Isserman's scholarship have been criticized by Rachelle Horowitz, Kahn's friend, and by Joshua Muravchik
Joshua Muravchik
Joshua Muravchik is a scholar formerly at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and now a fellow at the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University....
, then an officer of the Young People's Socialist League (1907)
Young People's Socialist League (1907)
The Young People's Socialist League , founded in 1907, was the official youth arm of the Socialist Party of America. Its political activities tend to concentrate on increasing the voter turnout of young democratic socialists and affecting the issues impacting that demographic group.- Foundation and...
. According to Horowitz, Meany had many speech-writers—two specialists besides Kahn and even more writers from the AFL–CIO's Committee on Political Education (COPE) Department. Horowitz stated, "It is in fact inconceivable that Kahn wrote those words" She quoted a concurring assessment from Arch Puddington: [Isserman] "assumes that because Kahn was not publicly gay he had to be a gay basher. He never was." According to Muravchik, "there is no reason to believe that Kahn wrote those lines, and Isserman presents none."
Harrington failed to support an anti-discrimination (gay rights) plank in the 1978 platform
Party platform
A party platform, or platform sometimes also referred to as a manifesto, is a list of the actions which a political party, individual candidate, or other organization supports in order to appeal to the general public for the purpose of having said peoples' candidates voted into political office or...
of the Democratic Party Convention, but noted his personal support after being criticized in The Nation. Along with others in the AFL–CIO and SDUSA, Kahn was accused of criticizing Harrington's application for his Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee
Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee
The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee was founded in 1973 by Michael Harrington, who led a minority caucus in the Socialist Party. Harrington's caucus supported George McGovern's his call for a cease-fire and immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam...
to join the Socialist International
Socialist International
The Socialist International is a worldwide organization of democratic socialist, social democratic and labour political parties. It was formed in 1951.- History :...
and to organize a 1983 conference on European socialism; Harrington complained for six pages in his autobiography The Long Distance Runner, and "brooded" about Kahn's opposition, exaggerating the importance of the Socialist International to America, according to Isserman's biography. In 1991, even after Harrington's 1989 death, Howe warned Harrington's biographer, Maurice Isserman
Maurice Isserman
Maurice Isserman is James L. Ferguson Professor of History at Hamilton College and an important contributor to the “new history of American communism” which reinterpreted the role of the Communist Party USA during the Popular Front period of the 1930s and 1940s. His books have also traced the...
, that Kahn's description of Harrington "may well be a little nasty" and "hard line".
AFL–CIO support for free trade-unions
When he became an assistant to the President of the AFL–CIO from 1972–1986, Kahn developed an expertise in international affairs. In 1980 AFL–CIO officer Lane Kirkland appointed Kahn to organize the AFL–CIO support for the Polish labor-union Solidarity; this support was made despite protests by the USSR and Carter administration.Support of Solidarity, the Polish union
Kahn was deeply involved with supporting the Polish labor-movement. The trade union Solidarity (Solidarność) began in 1980. The Soviet-backed Communist regime headed by General Wojciech JaruzelskiWojciech Jaruzelski
Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski is a retired Polish military officer and Communist politician. He was the last Communist leader of Poland from 1981 to 1989, Prime Minister from 1981 to 1985 and the country's head of state from 1985 to 1990. He was also the last commander-in-chief of the Polish People's...
declared martial law
Martial law
Martial law is the imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions on an emergency basis— only temporary—when the civilian government or civilian authorities fail to function effectively , when there are extensive riots and protests, or when the disobedience of the law...
in December 1981.
In 1980 AFL–CIO President Lane Kirkland
Lane Kirkland
Joseph Lane Kirkland was a US labor union leader who served as President of the AFL-CIO for over sixteen years.-Biography:...
appointed Kahn to organize the AFL–CIO's support of Solidarity. The AFL–CIO sought approval in advance from Solidarity's leadership, to avoid jeopardizing their position with unwanted or surprising American help. Politically, the AFL–CIO supported the twenty-one demands of the Gdansk workers
21 demands of MKS
21 demands of MKS were a list of demands issued on 17 August 1980 by the Interfactory Strike Committee . The first demand was the right to create independent trade unions...
, by lobbying to stop further U.S. loans to Poland unless those demands were met. Materially, the AFL–CIO established the Polish Workers Aid Fund, which raised almost $300,000 by 1981. These funds purchased printing presses, and office supplies. The AFL–CIO donated typewriters, duplicating machines, a minibus, an offset press, and other supplies requested by Solidarity.
"It is up to Solidarity ... to define the aid they need." "Solidarity made its needs known, with courage, with clarity, and publicly. As you know, the AFL–CIO responded by establishing a fund for the purchase of equipment requested by Solidarity and we have raised about a quarter of a million dollars for that fund."
"This effort has elicited from the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and
Bulgaria the most massive and vicious propaganda assault ... in many, many years. The ominous tone of the most recent attacks leaves
no doubt that if the Soviet Union invades, it shall cite the aid of the AFL–CIO as evidence of outside anti-Socialist intervention.
"All this is by way of introducing the AFL–CIO’s position on economic aid to
Poland. In formulating this position, our first concern was to consult our friends
in Solidarity ... and their views are reflected in the statement unanimously adopted by
the AFL–CIO Executive Council":
'The AFL–CIO will support additional aid to Poland only if it is conditioned on the adherence of the Polish government to the 21 points of the Gdansk Agreement. Only then could we be assured that the Polish
workers will be in a position to defend their gains and to struggle for a fair
share of the benefits of Western aid.'"
In testimony to the Joint Congressional Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 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
21 demands of MKS
21 demands of MKS were a list of demands issued on 17 August 1980 by the Interfactory Strike Committee . The first demand was the right to create independent trade unions...
.
The AFL–CIO's support enraged the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and worried the Carter Administration, whose Secretary of State Edmund Muskie
Edmund Muskie
Edmund Sixtus "Ed" Muskie was an American politician from Rumford, Maine. He served as Governor of Maine from 1955 to 1959, as a member of the United States Senate from 1959 to 1980, and as Secretary of State under Jimmy Carter from 1980 to 1981...
told Kirkland that the AFL–CIO's continued support of solidarity could trigger a Soviet invasion of Poland. After Kirkland refused to withdraw support to Solidarity, Muskie met with the USSR's Ambassador, Anatoly Dobyrnin, to clarify that the AFL–CIO's aid did not have the support of the U.S. government. Aid to Solidarity was also initially opposed by neo-conservatives Norman Podhoretz
Norman Podhoretz
Norman B. Podhoretz is an American neoconservative pundit and writer for Commentary magazine.-Early life:The son of Julius and Helen Podhoretz, Jewish immigrants from the Central European region of Galicia, Podhoretz was born and raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn...
and Jeanne Kirkpatrick, who before 1982 argued that communism could not be overthrown and that Solidarity was doomed.
The AFL–CIO's autonomous support of Solidarity was so successful that by 1984 both Democrats and Republicans agreed that it deserved public support. The AFL–CIO's example of open support was deemed to be appropriate for a democracy, and much more suitable than the clandestine funding through the CIA that had occurred before 1970. Both parties and President Ronald Reagan supported a non-governmental organization, National Endowment for Democracy
National Endowment for Democracy
The National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, is a U.S. non-profit organization that was founded in 1983 to promote US-friendly democracy by providing cash grants funded primarily through an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress...
(NED), through which Congress would openly fund Solidarity through an allocation in the State Department's budget, beginning in 1984. The NED was designed with four core institutions, associated with the two major parties and with the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Chamber of commerce
A chamber of commerce is a form of business network, e.g., a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to advocate on behalf of the business community...
(representing business). The NED's first president was Carl Gershman
Carl Gershman
Carl Gershman has been the President of the National Endowment for Democracy since its 1984 founding. He had served as the U.S...
, a former Director of Social Democrats, USA and former U.S. Representative to the United Nations committee on human rights. From 1984 through 1990, the NED and the AFL–CIO channeled 4 million dollars worth of equipment and support to Solidarity.
Director of the AFL–CIO's Department of International Affairs
In 1986 Kahn became the Director of the AFL–CIO Department of International Affairs, where he implemented Kirkland's program of having a consensus foreign policy. Working with leaders from member unions, Kahn helped to draft resolutions that represented consensus decisions, for nearly all issues.Kahn acted as Director of the AFL–CIO Department of International Affairs
American Center for International Labor Solidarity
The American Center for International Labor Solidarity , better known as theSolidarity Center, is a non-profit organization affiliated with the AFL-CIO labor federation that serves as a conduit for US foreign aid....
in 1986, after Irving Brown
Irving Brown
Irving Brown was an American trade-unionist, member of the American Federation of Labor and then of the AFL-CIO, who played an important role in Western Europe and in Africa, during the Cold War, in supporting splits among trade-unions in order to counter Communist influence...
suffered a stroke and resigned that same year; after Brown's death in 1989, Kahn was officially named the Director. He accepted the responsibility in 1986.
Living with AIDS
Earlier in 1986, Kahn had learned that he was infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIVHIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
), "which was then a death sentence". Kahn longed to spend his remaining years with his "new and most beloved partner", who was "the love of his life". However, Kahn accepted the office of Director out of a feeling of duty, knowing that he was taking "a job that would most surely work him to death". He warned his co-workers that his terminal condition would bring intellectual degeneration, and asked that they monitor him for signs of debilitation. An upgrade of the computer systems of the International Department was to have allowed Kahn to work from home.
Tom Kahn died from acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
) in Silver Spring, Maryland
Silver Spring, Maryland
Silver Spring is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It had a population of 71,452 at the 2010 census, making it the fourth most populous place in Maryland, after Baltimore, Columbia, and Germantown.The urbanized, oldest, and...
on March 27, 1992, at the age of 53, after having been cared for by his partner and supported by his friends and colleagues. He was survived by his partner and also his sister and his niece. Kahn planned most of his own memorial service, which was held in the AFL–CIO headquarters.
Selected writings
- "Preferential treatment for Negroes would not be a panacea, and though it might be used 'functionally' in dealing with certain employers and unions, it would not take care of the Negro in a contracting labor market, and would, if made central to policy, be fatally divisive of whites and blacks." |ref=harv}}|ref=harv}}
Photographs
- http://books.google.com/books?id=I_Nn-P_5kdcC&pg=PA150-IA3&dq=%22James+Farmer%22,+%22Tom+Kahn%22,+%22Rachelle+Horowitz%22&hl=en&ei=O4BLToCRNc2i-gbo6aiOCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22James%20Farmer%22%2C%20%22Tom%20Kahn%22%2C%20%22Rachelle%20Horowitz%22&f=falsePicture of Tom Kahn—with Rachelle Horowitz, James Farmer (CORE leader), and Ernest Green—at 1964 World's Fair, protesting poverty, before their arrest.] in
- Tom Kahn with Donald Slaiman of Social Democrats, USA.
