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The New York Times book review has said; Hayden is "the single greatest figure of the 1960s student movement.”; Nicholas Lemann, national correspondent of The Atlantic has written "Tom Hayden changed America"; Forty years later he was described as "the conscience of the Senate" by the political columnist of the Sacramento Bee; When he retired in 2000 after eighteen years, including chairing the committees on higher education, labor and environment, he received the longest farewell of any legislator in memory, according to the Los Angeles Times; "His journey is our journey through the tumultuous and disillusioning decades, He is our Everyman, he is us." – Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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The Los Angeles Free Press chose Tom Hayden for its first semi-annual Lifetime Dedication award. Tom has just published his 13th book “Ending the War in Iraq”. He has been active for forty years in a life both private and public. He was a “Freedom Rider” in the Deep South during the 60’s, a community organizer in Newark NJ to working to end the Vietnam war through teach-ins, demonstrations, writing and he made one of the first trips to Hanoi in 1965 to promote peace talks, journalistic contacts and American POW releases. Tom Hayden was chosen by both Art Kunkin the founder of the Los Angeles Free Press and Steve Finger the publisher. Taking the award Hayden said ““I hope the resurrection of the Los Angeles Free Press is a success because we really need one now”
In the seventies Tom Hayden organized the grass-roots Campaign for Economic Democracy in California, which won dozens of local offices and shut down a nuclear power plant through a referendum for the first time. In addition his campaign sponsored Proposition 65 (1986) requiring labels on cancer-causing products, and Proposition 99, tripling tobacco taxes to fund billions for public health and anti-tobacco initiatives
In 1982 Hayden was elected to the California state assembly and in 1992 he was elected to the state senate. He served eighteen years in office and passed over one hundred measures. He ran as a protest candidate several other times, resulting in a won-loss record of 7-4. Hayden was a part of the democratic platform committee twice. He was delegate six times in the ten Democratic national conventions he attended. Additionally Tom Hayden received the largest caucus votes in 1996 and again in 2000 as he was elected as a delegate.
Tom Hayden has been recognized again & again over the years. Hayden was named legislator of the year or given similar recognitions by the university and community college student lobbies, the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club, the Rainforest Action Network, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Association of Salvadorans in LA, the American Lung Association, Paw-PAC (animal welfare), the California public interest research group (Cal-Pirg), and the Liberty Hill Foundation.
The Los Angeles Free Press was first started in May of 1964 as the first independent publication of its type and the beginning of a new genre of newspaper. Staying away from corporate ties, the publication covered stories from an angle of free speech and freedom of expression. The LAFP took a stand against the Vietnam War and with its 125,000 issues a week helped to drive the anti-war message. The paper was distributed as far as the east coast at its height. Recently The Los Angeles Free Press has been making a comeback on the basis that even though the names and locations have changed, the issues are the same.
Original: Tom Hayden is given the Los Angeles Free Press Lifetime Dedication Award