Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Tom Kahn
Tom David Kahn (September 15, 1938 – March 27, 1992) was an American social democrat known for his leadership in several organizations. He was an activist and influential strategist in the Civil Rights Movement. He was a senior adviser and leader in the U.S. labor movement.
Kahn was raised in New York City. At Brooklyn College, he joined the U.S. socialist movement, where he was influenced by Max Shachtman and Michael Harrington. As an assistant to civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, Kahn helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, during which Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. Kahn's analysis of the civil rights movement influenced Bayard Rustin (who was the nominal author of Kahn's "From Protest to Politics"). (This article, originally a 1964 pamphlet from the League for Industrial Democracy, was written by Kahn, according to Horowitz (2007, pp. 223–224). It remains widely reprinted, for example in Rustin's Down the Line of 1971 and Time on two crosses of 2003.)
A leader in the Socialist Party of America, Kahn supported its 1972 name change to Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA). Like other leaders of SDUSA, Kahn worked to support free labor-unions and democracy and to oppose Soviet communism; he also worked to strengthen U.S. labor unions. Kahn worked as a senior assistant to and speechwriter for Democratic Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, AFL–CIO Presidents George Meany and Lane Kirkland, and other leaders of the Democratic Party, labor unions, and civil-rights organizations.
In 1980 Lane Kirkland appointed Kahn to organize the AFL–CIO's support for the Polish labor-union Solidarity; this support was made despite protests by the USSR and the Carter administration. He acted as the Director of the AFL–CIO's Department of International Affairs in 1986 and was officially named Director in 1989. Kahn died in 1992, at the age of 53.
Kahn was born Thomas John Marcel on September 15, 1938, and was immediately placed for adoption at the New York Foundling Hospital. He was adopted by the Jewish couple Adele and David Kahn, and renamed Thomas David Kahn. His father, a member of the Communist Party USA, became President of the Transport Workers Local 101 of the Brooklyn Union Gas Company.
Tom Kahn was a civil libertarian who "ran for president of the Student Organization of Erasmus Hall High School in 1955 on a platform calling for the destruction of the student assembly, because it had no power", an election he lost. In high school, he met Rachelle Horowitz, who would become his lifelong friend and political ally.
At Brooklyn College (CUNY), the undergraduate students Kahn and Horowitz joined the U.S. movement for democratic socialism after hearing Max Shachtman denounce the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary: Shachtman described
rolling Russian tanks ... defenceless Hungarian workers and students fighting back with stones ... a heroic people's crushed hopes, and ... our democratic socialist links to those hopes. Freedom, democracy—they were not abstractions; they were real and could therefore be destroyed. Communist totalitarianism was not merely a political force, an ideological aberration that could be smashed in debate; it was a monstrous physical force. Democracy was not merely the icing on the socialist cake. It was the cake—or there was no socialism worth fighting for. And if socialism was worth fighting for here, it was worth fighting for everywhere: socialism was nothing if it was not profoundly internationalist. I do not remember whether that was the night I signed up. But it was the night I became convinced.
Hub AI
Tom Kahn AI simulator
(@Tom Kahn_simulator)
Tom Kahn
Tom David Kahn (September 15, 1938 – March 27, 1992) was an American social democrat known for his leadership in several organizations. He was an activist and influential strategist in the Civil Rights Movement. He was a senior adviser and leader in the U.S. labor movement.
Kahn was raised in New York City. At Brooklyn College, he joined the U.S. socialist movement, where he was influenced by Max Shachtman and Michael Harrington. As an assistant to civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, Kahn helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, during which Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. Kahn's analysis of the civil rights movement influenced Bayard Rustin (who was the nominal author of Kahn's "From Protest to Politics"). (This article, originally a 1964 pamphlet from the League for Industrial Democracy, was written by Kahn, according to Horowitz (2007, pp. 223–224). It remains widely reprinted, for example in Rustin's Down the Line of 1971 and Time on two crosses of 2003.)
A leader in the Socialist Party of America, Kahn supported its 1972 name change to Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA). Like other leaders of SDUSA, Kahn worked to support free labor-unions and democracy and to oppose Soviet communism; he also worked to strengthen U.S. labor unions. Kahn worked as a senior assistant to and speechwriter for Democratic Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, AFL–CIO Presidents George Meany and Lane Kirkland, and other leaders of the Democratic Party, labor unions, and civil-rights organizations.
In 1980 Lane Kirkland appointed Kahn to organize the AFL–CIO's support for the Polish labor-union Solidarity; this support was made despite protests by the USSR and the Carter administration. He acted as the Director of the AFL–CIO's Department of International Affairs in 1986 and was officially named Director in 1989. Kahn died in 1992, at the age of 53.
Kahn was born Thomas John Marcel on September 15, 1938, and was immediately placed for adoption at the New York Foundling Hospital. He was adopted by the Jewish couple Adele and David Kahn, and renamed Thomas David Kahn. His father, a member of the Communist Party USA, became President of the Transport Workers Local 101 of the Brooklyn Union Gas Company.
Tom Kahn was a civil libertarian who "ran for president of the Student Organization of Erasmus Hall High School in 1955 on a platform calling for the destruction of the student assembly, because it had no power", an election he lost. In high school, he met Rachelle Horowitz, who would become his lifelong friend and political ally.
At Brooklyn College (CUNY), the undergraduate students Kahn and Horowitz joined the U.S. movement for democratic socialism after hearing Max Shachtman denounce the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary: Shachtman described
rolling Russian tanks ... defenceless Hungarian workers and students fighting back with stones ... a heroic people's crushed hopes, and ... our democratic socialist links to those hopes. Freedom, democracy—they were not abstractions; they were real and could therefore be destroyed. Communist totalitarianism was not merely a political force, an ideological aberration that could be smashed in debate; it was a monstrous physical force. Democracy was not merely the icing on the socialist cake. It was the cake—or there was no socialism worth fighting for. And if socialism was worth fighting for here, it was worth fighting for everywhere: socialism was nothing if it was not profoundly internationalist. I do not remember whether that was the night I signed up. But it was the night I became convinced.