1960s radical activist Hayden dies at 76
During 50 years in the public eye, Tom Hayden went from firebrand college liberal to mainstream politician to elder statesman.
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — During more than 50 years in the public eye, Tom Hayden went from firebrand college liberal to mainstream politician to elder political statesman. Through it all, he remained the person he said he always wanted to be: someone dedicated to changing the world.
Hayden, 76, who died Sunday following a long illness, was barely out of his teens and a student at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in the early 1960s when he came to national prominence as co-founder of the Students For a Democratic Society, a group critics at the time often dismissed as a band of ragtag malcontents threatening the American way of life.
In the years that followed, he went on to take part in Civil Rights Freedom Rides through the South and helped organize the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago that led to his and other members of the Chicago 7 being charged with, and eventually cleared of, inciting riots.
After that, he married actress Jane Fonda and ran for political office several times, serving 10 years in the California Assembly and eight more in the state Senate. He lectured frequently on politics and wrote 20 books, leading some of his contemporaries to brand him a sellout who joined the mainstream culture.
But even as his hair turned white, he never escaped his past — or for that matter even tried very hard to. As he wrote proudly in his memoir of forgoing an early opportunity at a career in journalism: “I didn’t want to report on the world; I wanted to change it.”
In later years, he focused on writing, teaching and lecturing. Hayden married actress Barbara Williams, and they had a son, Liam.
He acknowledged contentment with his later life but confided that nothing would ever match the excitement of his early years.
“Whatever the future holds and as satisfying as my life is today,” he wrote, “I miss the ’60s and I always will.”