David Harris (protestor)
Encyclopedia
David Victor Harris is an American journalist
and author
. He is known chiefly for his role as an anti-war
activist
during the Vietnam War
, most notably as a leading opponent of the Draft
.
. After graduating from Fresno High School
as "Boy of the Year" in 1963, Harris enrolled in Stanford University
. He soon became involved in the Civil Rights movement
, traveling through the Deep South
to join other students in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
's Freedom Summer
voter registration
campaign in Mississippi
. In 1966, he was elected student body president at Stanford, serving a one-year term. As a counter-protest, Harris's head was forcibly shaved by a gang of masked members of the Delta Tau Delta
fraternity
that had many football players as members and apparently a pro-war outlook.
—to return all draft cards, including exemptions and deferments, and refuse to be drafted; and to work together to end the Vietnam War. Within a few years, the Selective Service System
discovered that only about half of the men sent draft notices actually showed up for their draft physicals. The number of casual no-shows was too great to prosecute them all—some of them might have made a simple mistake—so the authorities only prosecuted a few leaders of the Resistance. When Harris received his draft notice, he chose neither to report nor to flee to Canada, as actual draft evaders had done. Eventually, Harris was arrested and convicted of "draft evasion"[sic], a federal felony
. He was sentenced to a term in federal prison
. He served about 15 months in various minimum- to medium-security prisons, where he led several hunger strike
s: this provided an occasion for transfer to another prison. He was released on parole in October 1970. After his release, he gave talks about the experience. He said: "In prison, I lost my ideals, but not my principles."
for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from a district that included the northern part of Silicon Valley
.
At Stanford, Harris was a protégé of Allard K. Lowenstein
, a political organizer and later one-term Democratic congressman from New York. In 1968, Lowenstein's Dump Johnson movement
resulted in Johnson's refusal to run for re-election. In March 1980, Lowenstein was shot to death by Harris's onetime friend Dennis Sweeney
, another Lowenstein protegé. Two years later, Harris wrote the book Dreams Die Hard
about his experiences throughout the 1960s and 1970s with Lowenstein and Sweeney and about the events leading up to the shooting. He has written several other books, as well as many articles for the Rolling Stone
, the New York Times Magazine and other periodicals.
In 1986, Harris published The League: The Rise and Decline of the NFL. This book focuses on the battle between Pete Rozelle
and Al Davis
over the 1982 move of the Oakland Raiders
to Los Angeles
. The book also covers several of the National Football League
's other controversies of that era.
On October 27, 2004, Harris published a book that drew on rare interviews with American, Iranian, and European participants in the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, titled The Crisis: The President, the Prophet, and the Shah—1979 and the Coming of Militant Islam. In it, Harris tells the story of the 444 days from an insider's perspective.
. Baez related the story of his arrest to the audience during one of her performances at the Woodstock Festival
, in which, while Harris was being arrested, anti-Vietnam War protesters were pasting a "resist the draft" bumper sticker
on the police car. Imprisonment didn't improve their marriage; after Harris returned, they filed for divorce. Harris and Baez had one son together, Gabriel Harris, born in December 1969. Gabriel attended the private Peninsula School
in Menlo Park
, which his mother had also attended. Gabriel is a drummer who sometimes tours with his mother.
In October 2009, Harris appeared on a PBS-produced documentary on Baez, How Sweet the Sound, in which he reunited on camera with his former wife to reminisce about their years together, his arrest and the birth of their son.
Harris was later married to author and New York Times reporter Lacey Fosburgh
from 1975 until her death in 1993. Harris and Fosburgh had one daughter together, Sophie Harris.
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
. He is known chiefly for his role as an anti-war
Anti-war
An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...
activist
Activism
Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...
during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, most notably as a leading opponent of the Draft
Conscription in the United States
Conscription in the United States has been employed several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War...
.
Early life and education
Harris was born in Fresno, CaliforniaFresno, California
Fresno is a city in central California, United States, the county seat of Fresno County. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 510,365, making it the fifth largest city in California, the largest inland city in California, and the 34th largest in the nation...
. After graduating from Fresno High School
Fresno High School
Fresno High School is a four-year secondary school located in Fresno, California. Fresno High is the oldest high school in the Fresno metropolitan area and one of the few International Baccalaureate schools; in addition it continues to be the most populous and most diverse campus in Fresno. Dr....
as "Boy of the Year" in 1963, Harris enrolled in Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. He soon became involved in the Civil Rights movement
African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)
The African-American Civil Rights Movement refers to the movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against African Americans and restoring voting rights to them. This article covers the phase of the movement between 1955 and 1968, particularly in the South...
, traveling through the Deep South
Deep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...
to join other students in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ' was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a series of student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 1960...
's Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer was a campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African American voters as possible in Mississippi which had historically excluded most blacks from voting...
voter registration
Voter registration
Voter registration is the requirement in some democracies for citizens and residents to check in with some central registry specifically for the purpose of being allowed to vote in elections. An effort to get people to register is known as a voter registration drive.-Centralized/compulsory vs...
campaign in Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
. In 1966, he was elected student body president at Stanford, serving a one-year term. As a counter-protest, Harris's head was forcibly shaved by a gang of masked members of the Delta Tau Delta
Delta Tau Delta
Delta Tau Delta is a U.S.-based international secret letter college fraternity. Delta Tau Delta was founded in 1858 at Bethany College, Bethany, Virginia, . It currently has around 125 student chapters nationwide, as well as more than 25 regional alumni groups. Its national community service...
fraternity
Fraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In Latin, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in the United States, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...
that had many football players as members and apparently a pro-war outlook.
Draft resistance
In 1967, Harris founded an organization called the Resistance, which persuaded young men of draft age to refuse to cooperate with the Selective Service SystemSelective Service System
The Selective Service System is a means by which the United States government maintains information on those potentially subject to military conscription. Most male U.S. citizens and male immigrant non-citizens between the ages of 18 and 25 are required by law to have registered within 30 days of...
—to return all draft cards, including exemptions and deferments, and refuse to be drafted; and to work together to end the Vietnam War. Within a few years, the Selective Service System
Selective Service System
The Selective Service System is a means by which the United States government maintains information on those potentially subject to military conscription. Most male U.S. citizens and male immigrant non-citizens between the ages of 18 and 25 are required by law to have registered within 30 days of...
discovered that only about half of the men sent draft notices actually showed up for their draft physicals. The number of casual no-shows was too great to prosecute them all—some of them might have made a simple mistake—so the authorities only prosecuted a few leaders of the Resistance. When Harris received his draft notice, he chose neither to report nor to flee to Canada, as actual draft evaders had done. Eventually, Harris was arrested and convicted of "draft evasion"[sic], a federal felony
Felony
A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...
. He was sentenced to a term in federal prison
Federal prison
Federal prisons are run by national governments in countries where subdivisions of the country also operate prisons.In the United States federal prisons are operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. In Canada the Correctional Service of Canada operates federal prisons. Prison sentences in these...
. He served about 15 months in various minimum- to medium-security prisons, where he led several hunger strike
Hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...
s: this provided an occasion for transfer to another prison. He was released on parole in October 1970. After his release, he gave talks about the experience. He said: "In prison, I lost my ideals, but not my principles."
Other work
In 1975, Harris ran unsuccessfully as a DemocratDemocratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from a district that included the northern part of Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
.
At Stanford, Harris was a protégé of Allard K. Lowenstein
Allard K. Lowenstein
Allard Kenneth Lowenstein, , was a liberal Democratic politician, a one-term congressman representing the 5th District in Nassau County, New York from 1969 until 1971. His work on civil rights and the antiwar movement has been cited as an inspiration by public figures including Congressmen, John...
, a political organizer and later one-term Democratic congressman from New York. In 1968, Lowenstein's Dump Johnson movement
Dump Johnson movement
The Dump Johnson movement was a movement within the United States Democratic Party to oppose the candidacy of President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson to become the party's nominee in the 1968 presidential election...
resulted in Johnson's refusal to run for re-election. In March 1980, Lowenstein was shot to death by Harris's onetime friend Dennis Sweeney
Dennis Sweeney
Dennis Sweeney was an anti-Vietnam War protestor and civil rights activist in the 1960s. He worked with SNCC in their voter registration drives in Mississippi...
, another Lowenstein protegé. Two years later, Harris wrote the book Dreams Die Hard
Dreams Die Hard
Dreams Die Hard is an autobiographical book written in 1982 by David Harris, a prominent anti-Vietnam War activist during the 1960s.The book chronicles the experiences of three men--Harris, Allard Lowenstein, and Dennis Sweeney--amid the political and social tumult of the 1960s, as well as the...
about his experiences throughout the 1960s and 1970s with Lowenstein and Sweeney and about the events leading up to the shooting. He has written several other books, as well as many articles for the Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, the New York Times Magazine and other periodicals.
In 1986, Harris published The League: The Rise and Decline of the NFL. This book focuses on the battle between Pete Rozelle
Pete Rozelle
Alvin Ray "Pete" Rozelle was the commissioner of the National Football League from January 1960 to November 1989, when he retired from office. Rozelle is credited with making the NFL into one of the most successful sports leagues in the world....
and Al Davis
Al Davis
Allen "Al" Davis was an American football executive. He was the principal owner of the Oakland Raiders of the National Football League from 1970 to 2011...
over the 1982 move of the Oakland Raiders
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders are a professional American football team based in Oakland, California. They currently play in the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. The book also covers several of the National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
's other controversies of that era.
On October 27, 2004, Harris published a book that drew on rare interviews with American, Iranian, and European participants in the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, titled The Crisis: The President, the Prophet, and the Shah—1979 and the Coming of Militant Islam. In it, Harris tells the story of the 444 days from an insider's perspective.
Marriage and family
Between 1968 and 1973, Harris was married to singer and activist Joan BaezJoan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
. Baez related the story of his arrest to the audience during one of her performances at the Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...
, in which, while Harris was being arrested, anti-Vietnam War protesters were pasting a "resist the draft" bumper sticker
Bumper sticker
A bumper sticker is an adhesive label or sticker with a message, intended to be attached to the bumper of an automobile and to be read by the occupants of other vehicles - although they are often stuck onto other objects...
on the police car. Imprisonment didn't improve their marriage; after Harris returned, they filed for divorce. Harris and Baez had one son together, Gabriel Harris, born in December 1969. Gabriel attended the private Peninsula School
Peninsula School
Peninsula School is a private school located on six acres of land in Menlo Park, California. It was founded in 1925 by two Stanford professors and provides education from nursery through eighth grade for both boys and girls. The Peninsula School assigns no tests in accordance with it's philosophy...
in Menlo Park
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...
, which his mother had also attended. Gabriel is a drummer who sometimes tours with his mother.
In October 2009, Harris appeared on a PBS-produced documentary on Baez, How Sweet the Sound, in which he reunited on camera with his former wife to reminisce about their years together, his arrest and the birth of their son.
Harris was later married to author and New York Times reporter Lacey Fosburgh
Lacey Fosburgh
Lacey Fosburgh was an American journalist, author, and academic best known for her bestselling book, Closing Time: The True Story of the Goodbar Murder .-Early life:...
from 1975 until her death in 1993. Harris and Fosburgh had one daughter together, Sophie Harris.