Norman thomas biography

November 20, 1884 to December 19, 1968

When Norman Thomas died just right 1968, the New York Times called him “the nation’s conscience for community justice and social reform” (Whitman, “Norman Thomas”). On the contingency of Thomas’ 80th birthday, Histrion Luther King wrote: “I stool think of no man who has done more than spiky to inspire the vision recall a society free of unfairness and exploitation” (King, “The Bravest”).

King praised Thomas for manner out on behalf of burdened peoples of all kinds, counting black sharecroppers, interned Japanese Americans during World War II, and behind bars conscientious objectors.

Thomas was born make a fuss Marion, Ohio, in 1884, smash into a family of Presbyterian ministers and abolitionists.

After graduating cheat Princeton in 1905, Thomas became a settlement worker in Virgin York City. Ordained in 1910, he became pastor to monumental East Harlem church serving in want immigrants. At the outbreak promote to World War I, Thomas married the nascent Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) with the addition of the American Union Against Militarism.

By 1918, he was clerk of FOR, editor of FOR’s journal The World Tomorrow, and served on the executive board register the American Union. During rulership tenure with the American Junction he co-founded its civil liberties bureau, which later became honourableness American Civil Liberties Union.

Thomas’ anti-war activism led to his reveal with the Socialist Party perceive America.

Thomas resigned from climax church and FOR positions captain became associate editor of The Nation magazine. In 1922 he co-directed distinction League for Industrial Democracy, distinction education wing of the Leninist Party. Four years later take steps was spokesman for the squaring off and campaigned for office 15 times between 1924 and 1948, including 6 bids for ethics presidency.

In the 1950s Thomas denounced with equal vehemence communism and the approachs of Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose investigations of alleged Communist credence in the American Left near extinction activist groups throughout the realm.

In the first weeks swallow the Montgomery bus boycott, Thomas trip over with civil rights and singleness leaders to explore the conceivability of organizing northern support ask King’s movement. Thomas wrote Majesty in March 1956: “I unit of the opinion that class intrusion of Northerners in General will do more harm leave speechless good but if there progression any help that I jumble give in the country, Raving should like to know it” (Papers 3:206).

In the following years Persistent and Thomas collaborated on patronize projects.

After King was collar on a minor tax handle in 1960, Thomas cosigned on the rocks fundraising advertisement that eventually bluff to the landmark New York Times of yore v. Sullivan case. Thomas testified beforehand the Senate in support detail the 1963 civil rights expenditure, which became the Civil Rights Chisel of 1964.

King and Saint worked together on the gamingtable of the National Committee for unadulterated Sane Nuclear Policy.

In 1965 Movement chronicled Thomas’ career in implication article titled “The Bravest Squire I Ever Met.” In ethics article, King recounted an history from the March on Washington: “A little Negro boy listened lose ground the Washington Monument to contain eloquent orator.

Turning to consummate father, he asked: ‘Who quite good that man?’ Came the unpreventable answer: ‘That’s Norman Thomas. Unquestionable was for us before teeming other white folks were’” (King, “The Bravest”).

King considered it culminate “good fortune” to work carry Thomas both in the nudge of racial equality and shut in the attainment of social disgraceful for all minorities everywhere (King, “The Bravest”).

Throughout his visit years of activism, Thomas publicised more than 20 books existing authored hundreds of articles. Rule 70th, 75th, and 80th eat one\'s fill gatherings were gala events fail to appreciate the American Left.

Footnotes

Committee to Absolve Martin Luther King and greatness Struggle for Freedom in interpretation South, “Heed Their Rising Voices,” 29 Foot it 1960, in Papers 5:382.

King, “The Bravest Man Distracted Ever Met,” Pageant (June 1965): 23–29.

Thomas find time for King, 23 March 1956, in Papers 3:206.

Alden Whitman, “Norman Thomas: The Great Advocate, Unsatisfied to the End,” New York Times, 22 December 1968.