Rennie Davis
Encyclopedia
Rennard Cordon “Rennie” Davis (born May 23, 1941) is a former, prominent American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 anti-Vietnam War
Opposition to the Vietnam War
The movement against US involvment in the in Vietnam War began in the United States with demonstrations in 1964 and grew in strength in later years. The US became polarized between those who advocated continued involvement in Vietnam, and those who wanted peace. Peace movements consisted largely of...

 protest leader of the 1960s. He was one of the Chicago Seven
Chicago Seven
The Chicago Seven were seven defendants—Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, and Lee Weiner—charged with conspiracy, inciting to riot, and other charges related to protests that took place in Chicago, Illinois on the occasion of the 1968...

.

Davis was the National Director of community organizing
Community organizing
Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest. A core goal of community organizing is to generate durable power for an organization representing the community, allowing it to influence...

 programs (the Economic Research and Action Project, or ERAP, in Ann Arbor, Michigan), a project of Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...

. Davis, along with Tom Hayden
Tom Hayden
Thomas Emmet "Tom" Hayden is an American social and political activist and politician, known for his involvement in the animal rights, and the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s. He is the former husband of actress Jane Fonda and the father of actor Troy Garity.-Life and...

, organized anti-war demonstrations in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 during the 1968 Democratic National Convention
1968 Democratic National Convention
The 1968 Democratic National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party was held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, from August 26 to August 29, 1968. Because Democratic President Lyndon Johnson had announced he would not seek a second term, the purpose of the convention was to...

 for the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
The National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam was a relatively short-lived coalition of antiwar activists formed in 1967 to organize large demonstrations in opposition to the Vietnam War. The organization was informally known as "the Mobe"....

 (“the Mobe”). He has appeared on Larry King Live
Larry King Live
Larry King Live is an American talk show hosted by Larry King on CNN from 1985 to 2010. It was CNN's most watched and longest-running program, with over one million viewers nightly....

, Barbara Walters
Barbara Walters
Barbara Jill Walters is an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. She has hosted morning television shows , the television newsmagazine , former co-anchor of the ABC Evening News, and current contributor to ABC News.Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news...

, CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

, Phil Donahue
Phil Donahue
Phillip John "Phil" Donahue is an American media personality, writer, and film producer best known as the creator and host of The Phil Donahue Show. The television program, also known as Donahue, was the first to use a talk show format. The show had a 26-year run on U.S...

, VH1
VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...

, and other network programs, and provided advice in business strategies for Fortune 500
Fortune 500
The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect. The list includes publicly and...

 companies.

Davis grew up in Berryville, Virginia
Berryville, Virginia
Berryville is an incorporated town in and the county seat of Clarke County, Virginia, United States. The population was 2,963 at the 2000 census.-Geography:...

, and is an alumnus of Oberlin College
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...

 in Ohio. His father was labor economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...

 John C. Davis
John C. Davis
John C. Davis was a labor economist and was U.S. President Harry S. Truman's chief of staff of the Council of Economic Advisers. His son is Rennie Davis.-References:...

, who was President Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...

's chief of staff of the Council of Economic Advisers
Council of Economic Advisers
The Council of Economic Advisers is an agency within the Executive Office of the President that advises the President of the United States on economic policy...

. Davis appeared in Chicago for the 1996 Democratic National Convention to appear on a panel with Tom Hayden discussing “a progressive counterbalance to the religious right”.

Chicago Seven

The Chicago Seven
Chicago Seven
The Chicago Seven were seven defendants—Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, and Lee Weiner—charged with conspiracy, inciting to riot, and other charges related to protests that took place in Chicago, Illinois on the occasion of the 1968...

 were seven defendants charged with conspiracy, inciting to riot, and other charges related to violent protests that took place in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

 on the occasion of the 1968 Democratic National Convention
1968 Democratic National Convention
The 1968 Democratic National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party was held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, from August 26 to August 29, 1968. Because Democratic President Lyndon Johnson had announced he would not seek a second term, the purpose of the convention was to...

.

The original eight protester/defendants, indicted by the grand jury on March 20, 1969, included Davis as well as Abbie Hoffman
Abbie Hoffman
Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman was a political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ....

, Jerry Rubin
Jerry Rubin
Jerry Rubin was an American social activist during the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1980s, he became a successful businessman.-Early life:...

, David Dellinger
David Dellinger
David T. Dellinger , was an influential American radical, a pacifist and activist for nonviolent social change.-Chicago Seven:...

, Tom Hayden
Tom Hayden
Thomas Emmet "Tom" Hayden is an American social and political activist and politician, known for his involvement in the animal rights, and the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s. He is the former husband of actress Jane Fonda and the father of actor Troy Garity.-Life and...

, John Froines
John Froines
John R. Froines is a chemist and anti-war activist.He is noted as a member of the Chicago Seven, a group charged with involvement with the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Froines, who holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Yale, was charged with interstate travel for purposes of...

, Lee Weiner
Lee Weiner
Lee Weiner , a member of the Chicago Seven, was charged with conspiracy and making incendiary devices for his part in the demonstrations that surrounded the 1968 Democratic National Convention.J...

. Bobby Seale
Bobby Seale
Robert George "Bobby" Seale , is an activist. He is known for co-founding the Black Panther Party with Huey Newton.-Early life:...

 was originally part of the Chicago Eight, before his case was separated from the others. The defense attorneys were William Kunstler
William Kunstler
William Moses Kunstler was an American self-described "radical lawyer" and civil rights activist, known for his controversial clients...

 and Leonard Weinglass
Leonard Weinglass
Leonard Irving Weinglass was a U.S. criminal defense lawyer and constitutional law advocate. Weinglass graduated from Yale Law School in 1958, then served as a Captain, Judge Advocate, United States Air Force from 1959 to 1961. He was admitted to the bar in the states of New Jersey, New York,...

 of the Center for Constitutional Rights
Center for Constitutional Rights
Al Odah v. United States:Al Odah is the latest in a series of habeas corpus petitions on behalf of people imprisoned at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. The case challenges the Military Commissions system’s suitability as a habeas corpus substitute and the legality, in general, of detention at...

. The judge was Julius Hoffman
Julius Hoffman
Julius J. Hoffman was a Chicago, Illinois, attorney and judge and former law partner of Richard J. Daley who achieved notoriety for his role in the Chicago Seven trial.-Early life:...

. The prosecutors were Richard Schultz
Richard Schultz
Richard Schultz was one of the prosecutors in the Chicago Seven trial that took place in the late 1960s.Schultz, then an assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, attended DePaul University College of Law...

 and Tom Foran
Tom Foran
Thomas Aquinas Foran, deceased August 6, 2000, was a US Attorney best known as the pugnacious chief prosecutor in the Chicago Seven conspiracy trial in which seven defendants, including Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, and Tom Hayden, were charged with inciting riots at the 1968 Democratic National...

. The trial began on 24 September 1969, and on 9 October the United States National Guard
United States National Guard
The National Guard of the United States is a reserve military force composed of state National Guard militia members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force service for the United States. Militia members are citizen soldiers, meaning they work part time for the National...

 was called in for crowd control as demonstrations grew outside the courtroom.

Divine Light Mission

Later, in the early 1970s, he became a follower of Guru Maharaj Ji (Prem Rawat) and was one of the spokespersons for and speakers at the widely publicized Millennium '73
Millennium '73
Millennium '73 was a three-day festival held on November 8–10, 1973 at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, United States, by the Divine Light Mission . It featured Prem Rawat, then known as Guru Maharaj Ji, a 15-year-old guru and the leader of a fast-growing new religious movement...

event organized by Divine Light Mission
Divine Light Mission
The Divine Light Mission was an organization founded in 1960 by guru Shri Hans Ji Maharaj for his following in northern India. During the 1970s, the DLM gained prominence in the West under the leadership of his fourth and youngest son, Guru Maharaj Ji...

 in the Houston Astrodome. He described the arrival of Guru Maharaj Ji as, Texas Monthly
Texas Monthly
Texas Monthly is a monthly American magazine headquartered in Austin, Texas. Texas Monthly is published by Emmis Publishing, L.P. and was founded in 1973 by Michael R. Levy, Texas Monthly chronicles life in contemporary Texas, writing on politics, the environment, industry, and education...

cited Davis as stating: "This city is going to be remembered through all the ages of human civilization." An Op-ed
Op-ed
An op-ed, abbreviated from opposite the editorial page , is a newspaper article that expresses the opinions of a named writer who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board...

 in The San Francisco Sunday Examiner speculated on whether Davis had undergone a lobotomy, and suggested, "If not, maybe he should try one."

Foundation for a New Humanity

Davis later became a venture capitalist and lecturer on meditation
Meditation
Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....

 and self-awareness
Self-awareness
Self-awareness is the capacity for introspection and the ability to reconcile oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals...

. Davis is the founder of Foundation for a New Humanity, a technology development and venture capital company commercializing breakthrough technologies.

In an article published in the Iowa Source in 2005, Davis said:

See also

  • Anti-war movement
  • Lord of the Universe (documentary)
  • New Left
    New Left
    The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...

  • Seattle Liberation Front
    Seattle Liberation Front
    The Seattle Liberation Front, or SLF, was a radical anti-Vietnam War movement, based in Seattle, Washington, in the United States. The group, founded by then-University of Washington visiting philosophy professor and political activist Michael Lerner, carried out its protest activities from 1970 to...

  • Yippies

Further reading

  • Greenfield, Robert. The Spiritual Supermarket. Saturday Review Press/E. P. Dutton & Co. Inc, New York. 1975 ISBN 084150367
  • Johns, Andrew L. Northern Passage: American Vietnam War Resisters in Canada, Journal of Cold War Studies - Volume 5, Number 2, Spring 2003, pp. 86–89
  • Chatfield, Charles, At the Hands of Historians: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era, 'Peace & Change', Volume 29 Issue 3-4 Page 483 - July 2004 PDF

External links

  • Video preview, 1974, Independent Video Archive (mediaburn.org), Lord of the Universe (documentary), Rennie Davis featured in clips
  • 3-minute excerpt, Creative Commons License, Internet Archive
    Internet Archive
    The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...

  • The Chicago Seven
  • The Chicago Seven Trial
  • UMKC Law site on Chicago Seven
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