Democracy Now! | Revolutionary Non-Violence: Remembering Dave Dellinger, 1915-2004

TOM HAYDEN: I was on trial with Dave Dellinger in 1969 and 1970 as part of the so-called Chicago 8. Our trial arose out of the Nixon administration's attempt to suppress the anti-war movement. I thought I would just read a couple of excerpts from my notes on the trial that I think capture Dave's passivism. He was a rock. He was much older than us. Of course, I'm older than he is now, but he had turned 60, and was the old man of the trial. Now I'm reading, "The winter days blurred into each other. The judge ordered us to continue the case on Saturdays, and our frustration grew as February and the end of the trial approached. There was one more vindictive insult to withstand, the revocation of Dave Dellinger's bail. As the trial unfolded, Dave had gradually lost his patience. Either from despair or a quicker sense of direct action, he began reacting vocally, often eloquently, at outrages in the courtroom. Sometimes the situation was really absurd, as when the judge ordered us to go to the bathroom in an adjoining cell instead of the public facility in the hall. Jerry Ruben and the prosecutors got into a heated argument with each other over the bathroom, and the federal marshals moved in. Dave said, don't touch him, and was ordered by the marshals to shut up. Dave replied, hurt -- you don't have to say shut up. At other times it would grow out of frustration. On January 14, for example, the judge erroneously accused Dave of saying something to which Dave replied, that's a lie. The judge, aroused, declared that he had never sat in 50 years through a trial where a party to a lawsuit called the judge a liar. That stirred Dave's deepest convictions and he rose up and said, maybe they were afraid to go to jail rather than tell the truth, but I would rather go to jail for however long you send me than to let you get away with that kind of thing. Second, on the day of our convictions, Abbey Hoffman said we're going to win every day until the last, but we were convicted for contempt of court, and it was later overthrown, but the judge started with Dave Dellinger, finding him in contempt 32 times, a sentence of two years, five months and 16 days. Mr. Dellinger, do you care to say anything, the judge said? I will hear you only in respect to punishment. Dave rose slowly, already tired from two weeks in the county jail. He tried to reply to the specific finds of the judge, but was stopped by the command to speak only to mitigate his punishment. Dave reacted sharply, suddenly gaining an eloquence that he wanted for the final statement. He said, you want us to be like good Germans, supporting the evils of our decade and then when we refuse to be good Germans and came to Chicago, now you want us to be like good Jews, going quietly and politely to the concentration camps while you and this court suppress freedom and the truth and the fact is, I'm not prepared to do that. The marshals started moving in on Dave at the judge's instructions. You want us to stay in our place like black people were supposed to stay in their place, like poor people were supposed to stay in their place, like women are supposed to stay in their place. Like people without formal education are supposed to stay in their place. Children are supposed to stay in their place and lawyers are supposed to stay in their place. The marshals came closer, grabbing Dave’s arms. People will no longer be quiet. People are going to speak up. I'm an old man, and I am speaking feebly and not too well, but I reflect the spirit that will echo throughout the world. Take him out, the judge commanded. There was an uproar in the spectator section. And I saw Dave's 15-year-old daughter, Michelle, red-faced screaming a crying tiger being held around the throat by a marshal. Dave tried to move toward her. Both were held from each other by a dozen marshals. Everybody in the courtroom was standing. Reporters were crying. Bill Kunslar collapsed over the lectern and asked to be punished next." that's my memory of Dave, and he was certainly able to turn non-violence into a source of fiery resistance.