Sunday Afternoon in Hudson
Two events are happening in Hudson today--Sunday, June 11--that merit attention and attendance. Fortunately, they are scheduled in such a way to allow you to do both.
At 2 p.m., at the Dr. Oliver Bronson House, Historic Hudson presents the first of two chamber music concerts performed by musicians from The Orchestra Now of Bard College.
The ensemble of young musicians will perform chamber works by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven in the 1849 suite of octagonal rooms designed by Alexander Jackson Davis--memorable music in a remarkable space. There is still time to secure a seat at the concert. Click here for more information and to purchase tickets.
At 5 p.m., at the Hudson Opera House, Jonathan Lerner will read from and discuss his memoir, Swords in the Hands of Children: Reflections of an American Revolutionary.
Lerner is known to us today in Hudson as the chair of the Conservation Advisory Council, but at the age of 19, living in New York City after dropping out of Antioch College, he joined the staff of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). In 1969, when the militant Weather Underground took over SDS, Lerner was one of its founders, the editor of its newspaper, and a member of the group until its demise in 1976.
Lerner was the subject recently of "The Rural We" in Rural Intelligence, where he talks about his life before SDS and about the upcoming reading at the Hudson Opera House. The event is free, but reservations are recommended and can be made here.
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The proper and pithiest response to the "hijinks" account of the Weathermen appears at Wikipedia. It's by Harvey Klehr, the Andrew W. Mellon professor of politics and history at Emory University in Atlanta: "The only reason they were not guilty of mass murder is mere incompetence. I don't know what sort of defense that is."
ReplyDeleteIn 2002 Lerner described himself as an "underling" in the group, "working in the office, handling the money ...writing leaflets, designing posters, giving press conferences."
Granted, immediately before its demise the Weather Underground would use "secretly directed activists" like Lerner in its "front organization," however, "the unaffiliated participants we gathered in turned out to be less stupid than this transparent scheme required, and soon angrily realized the thing was being controlled from someplace they couldn't quite see."
After years of introspection, Mr. Lerner now recalls that he was the group's "Minister of Propaganda."
Of course he was.