Staughton Lynd, civil rights activist and war critic, dies at 93

Edited by Ed Newman
2022-11-19 18:21:20

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Image Credit: Bettmann via Getty Images

Warren, November 19 (RHC)-- Staughton Lynd, the longtime U.S. peace and civil rights activist, lawyer and author, has died at the age of 93 in Warren, Ohio. 

In the early 1960s, Lynd taught alongside his friend Howard Zinn at Spelman College in Atlanta and served as director of the SNCC Freedom Schools of Mississippi.  He was a leading early critic of the Vietnam War.  The U.S. State Department stripped him of his passport after he traveled to North Vietnam in 1965.  Staughton Lynd was a conscientious objector during the Korean War and later supported U.S. soldiers who refused to fight in Iraq. 

In 1965, Lynd made international headlines appearing in a photo with other protestors splashed with red paint at a peace march in Washington, D.C.  Lynd enrolled in the University of Chicago law school in 1973.  He and his wife Alice had conducted an oral history project of the working class.

In 2011, Lynd delivered petitions to the warden at the Ohio State Penitentiary in support of inmates who were on a hunger strike to protest conditions at the prison.

Lynd continued organizing efforts in the Youngstown area, remaining active as an attorney, taking on a variety of cases, including those of disabled and retired workers.  In recent years, Lynd has also turned his attention to international issues, such as Nicaragua and the West Bank.



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