‘Chicago Seven’ activist leaves behind legacy of pacifism

DENVER — Rennie Davis, one of the “Chicago Seven” activists who was tried for organizing an anti-vietnam War protest outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago in which thousands clashed with police in a bloody confrontation that horrified a nation watching live on television, has died. He was 80.

Davis died Tuesday of lymphoma at his home in Berthoud, Col., his wife, Kirsten Liegmann, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

A longtime peace activist, Davis was national director of the community organizing program for the anti-war Students for a Democratic Society and was a protest co-ordinator for the Chicago convention.

In 1971, Davis also organized a mass demonstration against the Vietnam War that was designed to tie up traffic in Washington, D.C. Davis’ wife said his legacy goes well beyond his pacifist activism. He moved to Colorado, where he studied and taught spirituality and entered the business world, selling life insurance and running a thinktank that developed technologies for the environment. He became a venture capitalist and a lecturer on meditation and self-awareness, Liegmann said.

Davis was born on May 23, 1940, in Lansing, Mich., and raised in Berryville, Va. He graduated from Oberlin College and earned a master’s degree from the University of Illinois. Funeral arrangements were pending. Liegmann said a public memorial would be held at a future date on social media.