Chuck and I hadn't seen each other often in recent years, but we went to high school together (1962-1966), and I dare say I'm one of the few people in the wtr community who can remember him as a Goldwater Republican! Which he was, when I first met him, and as formidable and lucid on the right as he later was on the left (though I think he confounded those easy distinctions). Then he headed off one summer to the University of Texas at Austin, for some program - my memory is that is was actually a program in biology - and came back with a whole new political orientation, and with this wonderful little white motor scooter. I was in awe of him, not just for the charismatic clarity of his political talk, but also for his sense of adventure - making big banners for marches, going off on the scooter for late night bagels in Evanston, staying up all night for a demonstration outside a local segregated realtor (Baird and Warner, maybe?) - all these things were as much adventure as politics, as much politics as adventure.
Later, when I was in college in New York, he'd come to visit often (and unpredictably, without very much advance warning), sometimes still on the scooter. By this time his political views had become risky political actions, some of them connected with his draft resistance. He'd tell stories about prison - scary, and inspiring - or invite me to draft resisters' meetings, which were also scary and inspiring. Sometimes he'd stay at the Catholic Worker, and I'd meet him there, and I met Dorothy Day through him, for just a moment, though an indelible one. Sometimes we'd go round the corner to Yonah Shimmel's Knishes, and he'd be a little less austere than usual in eating and drinking. He lived for a while in the 125th Street Projects, taking care of Theodore and Ann Upshure (and later Ann alone, after Theodore's death); I visited him there, too, and met Theodore and Ann, and spent time with Ann when Chuck was away - Ann was this fiery, unquenchable old woman, given to saying things like "sex is the poetry of the poor," and coming back full of blissful enthusiasm from films about North Vietnamese families. Chuck got mugged a couple of times there, though he didn't talk about it very much.
His draft resistance, and tax resistance, were utterly inspiring to me - I didn't do anything about that inspiration for years, but when I finally started doing tax resistance, in 1986, I had Chuck in mind. And when I met him again, after a lapse of years, at one of the demonstrations for Randy and Betsy in Colrain, I was extraordinarily happy to find that our paths had led us to the same place and goal.
No one I've ever met had more influence on my politics, and I'll bet I'm not the only person who can say that. He was a good friend, and an intensely charismatic person of conscience. There's a Jewish tradition that the world depends for its continuance on the existence of 36 just persons, who remain hidden from the world and from one another. I sometimes thought he was one of them.
Best, in sadness and gratitude,
Larry Rosenwald
Created by: Jiayang Chien '05
Maintained by: Lawrence Rosenwald
Date Created: August 6, 2003
Last Modified:
August 7, 2003