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I don't think this belongs in the debate section, but some may disagree. I wasn't sure where to put it. I admired him and what he stood for. An important man in history. If only he were active today, or more like him.
Leon Shull, 93, Champion of Liberal Causes, Dies
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By DENNIS HEVESI
Published: August 29, 2007
Leon Shull, a leading advocate of liberal causes for two decades as national director of Americans for Democratic Action, died Saturday in Philadelphia, his hometown. He was 93.
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Ira Schwarz/Associated Press, 1984
Leon Shull
The cause was heart failure, his daughter Jane Shull said.
Mr. Shull was the A.D.A.’s national director for 20 years beginning in 1964, a role in which he led the organization’s opposition to the Vietnam War and pursued its campaign on behalf of civil rights for blacks, a goal it had undertaken as early as 1948, the year after its founding. Under his leadership, the group called for Democratic Party rule changes to assure black political participation in the South.
“We were frequently accused of being a Communist-front organization; in fact we were quite anti-Communist,” Mr. Shull told The Associated Press shortly after his retirement. “I was always on the defensive.”
Still, “all the progress I can think of in the last 50 years has come from the liberal movement,” he said. “Every single thing.”
Among other causes on Mr. Shull’s list were national health insurance, higher minimum wages and a nuclear freeze, and he was noted for fiery rhetoric against the Reagan administration’s conservative policies.
“Stop this rape of the American middle class and poor people!” he thundered in 1981 after helping organize liberal groups and unions to oppose President Ronald Reagan’s proposed budget cuts for Medicaid, food stamps, education assistance and jobs programs.
Leon Shull was born in Philadelphia on Nov. 8, 1913, the youngest of six children of Sam and Yetta Shull, Jews from Poland who had been assigned their last name by an immigration officer at the Port of Philadelphia. “No one knows what the family name was,” Jane Shull said.
Besides that daughter, Mr. Shull is survived by his wife of 69 years, the former Anne Wollod; another daughter, Susan Shull; and a granddaughter, all of Philadelphia.
Mr. Shull became an activist in high school and attended Temple University for one year, then quit to work in the labor movement.
He was hired by the A.D.A. in 1950 and eventually became director of its southeastern Pennsylvania chapter. Back then, he recalled after retiring, “there wasn’t a single restaurant in downtown Philadelphia where I could have a meal with a black friend.”
“This wasn’t Birmingham, this was Philadelphia,” he said. “A lot of people don’t want to remember it.”
Leon Shull, 93, Champion of Liberal Causes, Dies
Sign In to E-Mail or Save This Print Reprints Share
DiggFacebookNewsvinePermalink
By DENNIS HEVESI
Published: August 29, 2007
Leon Shull, a leading advocate of liberal causes for two decades as national director of Americans for Democratic Action, died Saturday in Philadelphia, his hometown. He was 93.
Skip to next paragraph
Ira Schwarz/Associated Press, 1984
Leon Shull
The cause was heart failure, his daughter Jane Shull said.
Mr. Shull was the A.D.A.’s national director for 20 years beginning in 1964, a role in which he led the organization’s opposition to the Vietnam War and pursued its campaign on behalf of civil rights for blacks, a goal it had undertaken as early as 1948, the year after its founding. Under his leadership, the group called for Democratic Party rule changes to assure black political participation in the South.
“We were frequently accused of being a Communist-front organization; in fact we were quite anti-Communist,” Mr. Shull told The Associated Press shortly after his retirement. “I was always on the defensive.”
Still, “all the progress I can think of in the last 50 years has come from the liberal movement,” he said. “Every single thing.”
Among other causes on Mr. Shull’s list were national health insurance, higher minimum wages and a nuclear freeze, and he was noted for fiery rhetoric against the Reagan administration’s conservative policies.
“Stop this rape of the American middle class and poor people!” he thundered in 1981 after helping organize liberal groups and unions to oppose President Ronald Reagan’s proposed budget cuts for Medicaid, food stamps, education assistance and jobs programs.
Leon Shull was born in Philadelphia on Nov. 8, 1913, the youngest of six children of Sam and Yetta Shull, Jews from Poland who had been assigned their last name by an immigration officer at the Port of Philadelphia. “No one knows what the family name was,” Jane Shull said.
Besides that daughter, Mr. Shull is survived by his wife of 69 years, the former Anne Wollod; another daughter, Susan Shull; and a granddaughter, all of Philadelphia.
Mr. Shull became an activist in high school and attended Temple University for one year, then quit to work in the labor movement.
He was hired by the A.D.A. in 1950 and eventually became director of its southeastern Pennsylvania chapter. Back then, he recalled after retiring, “there wasn’t a single restaurant in downtown Philadelphia where I could have a meal with a black friend.”
“This wasn’t Birmingham, this was Philadelphia,” he said. “A lot of people don’t want to remember it.”
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