I met David McReynolds when I was still a searching young adult, unsure of how to square my radical upbringing and inherited principles with being a grown up who had bills to pay and stars to catch in New York City. I started coming to War Resisters League meetings and listening as decades-old debates raged between socialists and anarchists, strategic and moral pacifists, young and old radicals, and those who believed in confronting war with a pointed, learned essay and those who believed it required a mass mobilization or a general strike.
David — who passed away last month at the age of 88 — was already an elder within the organization when I joined nearly 20 years ago. He wasn’t always on one side or the other, but he was always trying to impart hard-won wisdom from a life of pacifist strategizing, struggling and experimentation.
By now, David’s accomplishments and contributions have been enumerated and lauded in countless publications from the New York Times to Tikkun, so I won’t reprise them all here. If you didn’t know David, the best way to understand who he was and what his life meant to so many is to listen to Democracy Now’s extended interview with his friend and colleague Ed Hedemann and Jeremy Scahill, activist and journalist. I have found myself hungry for his voice in the weeks since his death. Luckily, YouTube has loads of interviews with David, including a whip-sharp appearance on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher in August 2000, where he held his own — refusing to be caricatured as a political quack. Invited to sit alongside Shari Belafonte and two other actors, David stayed focused on the issues, got in his talking points and is not cowed by celebrity. He won the crowd’s respect and affection.
David was self-critical. He called himself a peace movement bureaucrat and would honor the courage of others, like his friend Carmen Trotta, who participated in the Kings Bay Trident Plowshares in April. Yet, as I reflect on his life, all I see is courage. He came out as gay when that identity was a jail sentence, a tightly shut closet and a career killer even within progressive circles. He came out as a pacifist when that identity was mocked as naive, bourgeois and traitorous. He came out as a socialist when that identity was misunderstood, feared and hated. David was out; he learned to live without apology, without shame, without caveat.
And while he bemoaned that he wasn’t going to jail all the time for his beliefs, he took a bust more than most and was consistent over more than half a century in his opposition to war and militarism. As his friend and longtime colleague Ed Hedemann told me, “I believe one of his first arrests (if not the first) was April 17, 1959, in City Hall Park for refusing to take shelter during the annual nuclear war air raid drill; and his last arrest — 56 years later — on April 28, 2015, was in front of the U.S. Mission, demanding the elimination of all nuclear weapons.” Ed wrote back a few hours later to revise the record, “Actually, his first arrest appears to be in 1954 when he refused induction.” That is 61 years of pacifist, creative, brave witness.
I watched and listened and learned. The work of building peace with justice is a lifelong undertaking. It can’t all happen today. How do you sustain a sense of urgency without going crazy? How do you care for yourself and care for the world? How do you — as his friend and mentor A.J. Muste posited — remain steadfast in your principles, remain unchanged in a changing world?
Here are some lessons I am trying to learn from David McReynolds:
You need beauty
David loved scents. He had hundreds of vials of perfume and essential oils and always smelled good. He took and shared beautiful photographs. He learned about E.E. Cummings and William Carlos Williams from the great dancer Alvin Ailey when they were both young, and Ailey imparted a lifelong love of poetry to David. He was a member of the New York Bromeliad Society and traveled all over to continue to learn about these incredible plants. I had to look up what that meant (it’s a plant that thrives without soil). He paused over and appreciated beauty.
You need friends
David mailed birthday cards to his friends. Mostly up-close photos of flowers with a penned or typed line of appreciation. He cultivated friendship and maintained them even amid bitter political and philosophical disagreements. He had an open door policy at his tiny and incredibly cluttered apartment, which served as a late night salon for a wide circle of of friends. Every year, he called together his community to “the Night of the Candles.” In the dark, he and his friends named and remembered those who had died in the past year, lighting candles and speaking their names. It is a tradition he kept for many years. In addition to his many human friends, David also cared for and loved cat companions. David was a good friend.
You need to eat
My husband, Patrick Sheehan-Gaumer, knew David through the War Resisters League as a kid. The two of them would sneak out for forbidden hamburgers at McDonald’s, eschewing the veggie movement fare. David made a hummus redolent with garlic. It was almost more garlic than beans. His recipe, captured for a War Resisters League desk calendar, calls for a healthy dose of MSG. He brought it to every gathering. And now we will too, in celebration of his distinct palate.
You need to believe
David was an atheist. He did not subscribe to any religion. But he carried a deep respect for many and was curious about faith traditions. He believed in ritual and created meaning, making gatherings like his Night of Candles. He believed in socialism, saying he didn’t just want to be anti-imperialist or anti-racist, but pro-solution. He believed in people, in beauty, in tomorrow.
In his last Night of Candles invitation, in 2017, David wrote: “I am very aware that at 88 I am pushing the odds of whether I will be here next year. The event is meant to pay homage to our personal pasts, to the people (or cats, dogs, birds) that, for good or bad, shaped us. We rush to the future, but the past is still alive in us.”
This year, there will be a new candle flickering in the darkness. David McReynolds, thank you for all you are teaching me.
David McR and I argued a lot, mostly online, about the Russian Revolution. It was a lot of fun, and we really agreed about most of that topic, although I would remind him that he didn’t quite agree with me enough. The point is that we enjoyed debating, mostly about what many would consider esoteric differences. We always got along when it came to the basics—nonviolence and democratic anti-capitalism. And I discovered that I worked with him well, despite what some others said. I cannot put myself in their shoes, but while standing, sitting and walking in my shoes, I enjoyed working with David a whole lot, and had a lot of fun. One should enjoy revolution.
Thanks Frida. Nice remembrances of David.
Dear Frida,
thanks a lot for this wonderful obituary. I am living in Germany, but knew
David from the times at the War Resisters’ International Council Meetings and Triennial Conferences many years ago, starting probably in the early 70ies. Though at the time I did not always understand fully
Davids positions, but since facebook exchanges I have read quite some of his
entries there and have been very moved by it, as I too learned a lot this way
about Davids manifold political and other interests – and about discussions in the USA on different issues.
The way you have structured your thoughts about David give a very vivid pictures and show him in his various abilities to not only critisize politics or people, but look at human beeings in a very empathatic way. I liked his animal-mails, his flower-fotos to tempt the readers into another of his essays, was grateful for his international mails, e.g. to let us know there are still people and organisations in Japan to struggle against “the bombs”. I meant to send him fotos about a small action on August 6th – Nagasaki day, which he could have passed on to his friends in Japan – but – I did not do it in time. He left before that. – I am sad.
All the best and lots more of all your courage,
greetings to Joanne and best wishes for your family –
I have been impressed by your writing for a long time.
Helga Weber-Zucht, Kassel in Germany
PS
the webpage is not being worked on any more,
since we closed down our mail order bookshop and
our publishing activities in 2013.
Thanks Frida for your loving memories of David. David was a mentor for so many of us to keep up our courage and keep our eyes on the prize and keep speaking truth even amidst all the lies and insanity. David will live on in all of us whose lives he touched!!
Thank you for a wonderful and thorough portrait of David McReynolds. Until now, my only up close knowledge of David was gleaned from a chance encounter in a hallway in 1995 before he was to attend a workshop on radical politics held at the University of Pittsburgh. In the five or so minutes of chatting about the political situation and how it related to prospects for peace and economic equality, I gained insights I haven’t forgotten. Now Frida has enabled me to know David so much better, if for the sad reason that he has left us. What a wonderful model for peaceful and just living David McReynolds is still creating.
I’ve told this pearl-of-wisdom anecdote about David McReynolds before, but it always bears repeating, I heard him giving a speech at Harvard in 1960, where he delivered this throwaway line: “I’m an anarchist, but I believe in government.” Getting the expected “hunh?” from the audience, he added “Yes, I believe in government. It’s the state I’m against. What’s the difference? The government collects garbage. The state executes people.” —Gene Keyes
I met, briefly, this man who would run for socialist-President: office as Prf. Howard Zinn and I gathered @ the WRL in uptown, NY-city June summer-Solstice 1968. He was a powerful presence as we three lead the march that would go along for 2-3 hours to reach 120Th Ave in Harlem. My meter for Van-1 was nearly up at 2-hours by then,yet for 2-blocks I was pleased to be among those who were anti-imperialist and anti-War. Merely, I wanted then all 130,000 behind that day to be anti: NSDU-238. I have not stopped my speaking-out, as I did en Voce` then, as well as this morning to get up and wRite my volumes and share my website. Today is Thursday 06 Sep 2018, and Volume-five was my editing these past 3-days.
David McReynolds Memorial — Saturday, December 1st, 12pm-3pm @ Judson Memorial Church (55 Washington Square South – NYC, NY)
Also, we are collecting ‘favorite emails’ folks have received from David. Please send any favorite email you’re willing to share to McReynoldsMemorial@gmail.com.
Thanks, Frida And WNV, for this beautiful tribute to David McReynolds … a brave and enlightened self-aware life well lived, and never a “wasted vote” whenever he gave us the option in his various presidential runs. What a different world it could have been! What a different world it still can be! “Don’t mourn, organize!” Indeed!
Thanks very much for this, Frida. I wrote my own remembrance for the Solidarity webzine (note: it repeats much of what you wrote, unavoidably):
https://solidarity-us.org/david-mcreynolds-1929-2018/