Civil rights & activism / Politics / Literature
Tom Hayden
1939–2016 · activist, author, politician
Royal Oak-raised author of the Port Huron Statement and New Left leader who grew up in Father Coughlin's parish and later served in the California legislature.
- Born
Royal Oak, Michigan- Died
Santa Monica, California
aged 76- Birth name
- Thomas Emmet Hayden
- Detroit years
- 1939–1957
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Tom Hayden was born in Royal Oak in 1939 to Irish Catholic parents; his father was a Chrysler accountant, and after the parents divorced his mother raised him. He attended Catholic school and the Shrine of the Little Flower, the parish of the 'radio priest' Charles Coughlin, whose antisemitic broadcasts later pushed Hayden away from the church. At Dondero High School he edited the school paper and famously spelled out a rude farewell in the first letters of his final column. At the University of Michigan he edited The Michigan Daily, helped found Students for a Democratic Society and in 1962 drafted its Port Huron Statement, a founding text of the New Left, named for the Michigan lakeside town where it was adopted. He later organized in Newark, stood trial with the Chicago Seven and, after marrying Jane Fonda, served 18 years in the California legislature.
Highlights
- Principal author of the Port Huron Statement (1962)
- President of Students for a Democratic Society, 1962–1963
- Defendant in the Chicago Seven trial (1969–1970)
- Member of the California State Assembly and Senate, 1982–2000
- Graduate of Dondero High School in Royal Oak
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Related place · 1940s–1950s
National Shrine of the Little Flower Basilica
Father Charles Coughlin's Royal Oak church, which the Hayden family attended during his childhood.
Studied here · 1953–1957
Dondero High School
Closed · 2006
The Royal Oak public high school where he edited the student newspaper; it merged into Royal Oak High School in 2006.