Customer Reviews

From Yale to Jail: The Life Story of a Moral Dissenter

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Please bear in mind that the only complete version of this book that has been published is a softcover version published by Rose Hill Books. The earlier versions edited out sections. I spoke to Dave about this personally in the late 90's, as well as the publishers of the Rose Hill Books version, and know it to be so.

The image on the cover with two columns with the words "From Yale" between them is the cover image of this version of the book.

It is an absolute must-read for any student of MLK, the civil rights movement, activism in America, the Chicago 7 or Chicago 8, Black Power movement history, the '60s as an era of change or activism, and Christian Radicalism.

Fantastic, couldn't put it down...Remarkable man, if I achieve in the whole of my life a fraction of what Dave did I will be a happy man.

Born with a golden spoon in his mouth, David Dellinger could have had it all. A talented athlete from an affluent background, educated at Yale and Oxford, he had every advantage. But he gave them up for justice and principle, enduring financial insecurity, long prison terms, hunger strikes, death threats, for what he believed in: Christian pacifism, later secular anarchism and humanism.

While at Yale, he went tramping, briefly living like a homeless derelict to see how the "other half" lived. Chapters 8 and 9 of this book are reminiscent of George Orwell or Jack London. After graduation from Yale--magna cum laude--and a year at Oxford, Dellinger went to live in hobo camps in New Jersey. In 1940 he was invited by Eleanor Roosevelt to have tea at the White House. He went, had tea with her, then hopped a freight train back home!

Imprisoned during World War II for refusing to register for the draft, he refused to co-operate in any way with warmaking. As a divinity student he was eligible for a deferment, but rejected preferential treatment not available to others. In prison he was abused to the point of torture, force-fed, then released early because the prison authorities couldn't handle him.

Later he published Liberation Magazine and other influential journals of progressive thought. In 1965 his print shop was trashed by vandals. During the Vietnam war he joined Bertrand Russell's war crimes tribunal in Sweden and went to North Vietnam and got American soldiers released from Vietnamese prisons. He had a cordial relationship with Ho Chi Minh, who liked and trusted him as a man of peace. After the death of A. J. Muste in 1967, Dellinger became the leader of the American peace movement. As one of the Chicago Eight defendants, he tried to put the U.S. government on trial for its crimes. Dellinger was a gentle man of great courage and rare integrity. Sometimes likened to Francis of Assisi or Mohandas K. Gandhi, he treated everyone with respect, including his adversaries. But during the Chicago trial he refused to stand when the judge entered the room because he said he believed in equality. This book is action packed and rich in historical and philosophical insights. Also good insights into other prominent peace activists. Must reading for anyone interested in sixties America, or in the home front during the Vietnam war.