Early Social Influence
Marjorie Brockman
— My maternal grandfather was a great intellectual and a militant atheist. And the first thing he did with me when I learned how to write my name was schlep me down to the public library and get me a library card. And he was a great influence on my life. He died when I was in my first year at Brooklyn.
My grandfather was progressive but the rest of the family well, they were Roosevelt Democrats but they were horrible racists, awful. Until the day they both died, I couldn't stand it. But my mother was tolerant of all my left wing friends and of whom I had a good number.
I was always interested in political things though I was not a joiner. I guess I was sort of an isolate. I was a reader and interested in art. And a very, very, very major contribution to my life was the fact that we spent summers and then, as I got older, other parts of the year in a farm in upstate New York. And that was one of the things that attracted me to the Farm Corps. I thought I really knew rural America.
The other thing I was involved in as a child was the American Labor Party, which was the left wing party in New York that wasn't the Communist or the Socialist Party. Actually, there was someone who lived on the floor of my building, a man named Sparky Friedman who was a taxi driver, he lived across the hall from us and he was a member of the ALP and he took me under his wing and gave me lots of stuff to read and it influenced me a great deal. That was Sparky Friedman's suggestion that I go to a couple of meetings and meet the people. That's exactly how it happened. It's very interesting to recall that now.
And I did all the things that radical kids did in those days, went to hootenannies, lots of hootenannies? Woody Guthrie and other people whose names I can't remember, not Lee Hayes but the black... Leadbelly. Actually, I knew Leadbelly. And that was also a very powerful influence.
Frances Koral
— My brother who was nine years older than I was a strong influence on my life. He was editor of The Vanguard when he was in college and he had all kinds of liberated notions. My brother taught me all about politics and the world and culture and the excitement of growing up in this world ... My father loved music but he wouldn't think to talk to me like that. And my mother really didn't know that world. So he opened up a whole world and I became very actively politically on the campus as the result of my brother's approach to the world. And I'm very proud of those years.
Elliot Levine
— My parents were you might say socialistic free thinkers. They, as a matter of fact, voted for Norman Thomas in 1932. They never turned their backs on their Jewish heritage and certain Jewish customs were maintained in the household. There was a general, not exactly a prohibition, but my mother would not serve milk or other dairy products with a meat meal, not for a long time. She gradually forgot about that. She would light candles Friday evening, Sabbath. But they weren't, they weren't worshipers. Late in life my mother joined a reformed temple in Manhattan Beach. I was bar-mitzvahed. They felt that I should have a bar-mitzvah. I had to be talked into it. And I studied. We had a neighbor right across the hall who was a Hebrew teacher and he used to come in and give me private lessons. And he was quite delighted with the progress I made and thought I was going to end up a language teacher 'cause I seemed to have a facility. But that was the furthest thing from my ambitions and thoughts. For a while I went to shul to please him and then just gave it up. And to this day I'm not a worshiper. Incidentally, getting back to my parents and their socialism, as Roosevelt's New Deal began to develop they dropped their socialism and they became ardent New Dealers. And my father would tell me repeatedly: "Roosevelt is adopting many ideas from Socialism."
Marion Greenstone
— As I said, my grandparents were practicing and I remember going to the synagogue. When we lived in Beacon I used to go to the synagogue with my grandfather. And I belonged to the youth group—you know—and all those social things. But when I was about sixteen I began to question it all, not to them but ... Well, I talked to my father about it and he always encouraged me to think the way I was thinking. But we respected the rest of the family. We weren't terribly religious.
My mother was President of the women's Democratic Party in Beacon and my father was an active as he could be, considering that he was commuting. As a matter of fact, I met Mrs. Roosevelt at her summer cottage when I was about thirteen or so. There was some sort of a thing for the political activists and my mother took me. And I remember shaking hands with her. I was very impressed. And the President drove down the main street of Beacon in a four-door convertible with his hat and his pipe. I don't know if you've seen pictures of Roosevelt that way. And that was very exciting. So they were active, yeah.
My father was always a liberal too. And I guess he voted ALP also.