Penn Kemble Eulogy Rachelle Horowitz |
And I hope you will forgive me when I ask you to remember three others along with him: Paul Feldman, Tom Kahn and Sandy Feldman.
They and I shared a youth together, that in reflection was incredibly good. Somehow we all found a way into the radical movement, to the Shachtmanite movement, to the democratic socialist movement.
And because of the that movement we overcame difficult childhoods, teenage alienation, and college bohemianism.
We became part of a second family. A family that discussed ideas, really cared and really fought about them. A family that picketed and sat in together. A family that lived in inexpensive walk up apartments, ate dinner at the free counter at Smith's Restaurant in New York, lived on White Tower hamburgers, and drank Chianti out of straw covered bottles. But a family that collected African art and early American antiques.
A family of 20 year olds who knew history was on their side. Who thought nothing of telling the President of the U.S. how to reorder the economy or how to get out of the war in Viet Nam. A family which never doubted it should put its body where its head was – either on the Triborough bridge, in Mississippi or in a New York City class room. A family that was not afraid to say “No!” to fake radicals.
How lucky I was to have known them, and how sad that these four are gone. Cut down too soon.
Even in those early days some 40 years ago. Penn was unique among us and could make something useful out of the most god awful situation.
He would often joke about sitting in on the Triborough Bridge, but in a certain sense it was a turning point in the civil rights movement.
The major civil rights demonstrations had taken place. Penn had been a full time volunteer at the 1963 March on Washington.
The action was now in the halls of Congress. The fight for jobs, education and housing – did not lend itself to street protest .
One group of people in the civil rights movement could not accept that and moved to black power and separatism. Another group tried to hold on to integration, militancy and to raise new demands. Penn was deeply committed to sticking with non-violence, mass action and integration.
So when the members of East River Core decided to protest by sitting in on the Triborough Bridge in New York City Penn agreed to sit in also.
He and his running buddy Paul Feldman were assigned to write the press release explaining it.
They needed a few drinks to quiet their inner demons because they knew this wasn't the best way to protest, and to bring out the poets inside them.
For only a poet could make sitting in on a bridge during rush hour in New York City seem reasonable. They wrote a beautiful press release – asking New Yorkers to stop and to look at Harlem as they passed over the bridge to get to the suburbs. It was an ode about the two Americas
The New York Times printed it before there was an OP Ed page. Penn always said he lost some respect for the press after that. He also said he was never so grateful to see the police and to get arrested as he was that day.
He was sure a motorist would kill him and he was terrified an ambulance with a very sick person would get stuck for hours in the long delay they caused.
But he also believed that he could not abandon his militant friends and the movement that was struggling for a new perspective.
Most of you know Penn had a wry sense of humor. He could make you laugh at the most difficult times -- even from his sick bed.
But I remember a day years ago when the Worlds Fair opened in New York City We were out there protesting again – this time it was national Core, led by Jim Farmer. Bayard Rustin was there as was Ernie Green.
It was another one of those New York demonstrations: the goals were allusive, the object was publicity. Penn was not allowed to get arrested this time, since he was serving probation for the Triborough Bridge arrest. So now he was in charge of press and making sure those of us who were arrested were sprung. I went to jail laughing because Penn's last words to me were. “This is Castro in Disney Land.”
I hope you have all read the beautiful obituaries about Penn in The London Times, the New Republic and Will Marshall's and Josh's in the Wall St. Journal.
They were all beautiful and true…. Penn was amazing – He got people who had grown apart, who thought their politics had taken them in an entirely different direction to sit down together and to -- in varying degrees -- remember what they agreed about.
Some times uniting figures lose their own political identity or submerge it ….Not Penn –when he spoke to the neo-cons he remained a staunch democrat, he argued with the DLC about the need for a strong labor movement –he urged trade unionists to pay attention to technology and education, to support economic growth, and to fight the nuts – he never stopped trying to convince Kennedy Democrats they needed an aggressive and tough foreign policy –
Having gotten what many in Washington live for -- a significant appointment in a Democratic Administration, he took on the tough unpopular fights while remaining loyal to that Administration. And when that Administration ended rather than become a beltway bandit or a rich consultant – he decided to use most of his energy to revive the Social Democratic Movement in the United States
Penn taught us how to live the honorable political life.
In his speech to an SDUSA convention, Penn's political hero Sydney Hook. said: “Look around you and ask: who are the most integrated persons you know, who seem to have found themselves and, however one defines it, have achieved a satisfactory and happy life?”
Hook went on, “ I am confident that they will be persons who are characterized by one or both of two features: (1) they are able to love or be loved in their personal relationships, and (2) they have found a continuing self-fulfillment in their life's work. “
Any one who spent a minute with Penn and Mal knew that he had found his great love, play and workmate.
And certainly he found fulfilment in his work. But it was not complete. He told us that before he died. He asked for a conference, he demanded we think about the future, he insisted we not abandon a fractured labor movement, he wanted old friends who had parted to get together. He left assignments for us all.
That conference was Penn's polite but determined way of forcing us not to forget that life goes on and to insist that we try to build a social democratic movement. He was determined to continue organizing even in death.
I will always remember that even in his difficult hours, while fighting a ferocious disease Penn never stopped trying to change the world, never compromised his principles. And never gave any of us a chance to give up. As Mike Walzer has written about the struggle to make a better world: “You don't have to finish it, but you are not allowed to walk away from it, and you won't walk away from it.”
For doing just that we owe Penn remembrance, thanks and action. He “did not go gentle into that good night. “