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use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = , death_cause = , nationality = , other_names = , siglum = , citizenship = , education = , alma_mater =
University of California-Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...
, occupation = , years_active = , era = , employer = , organization = , known_for = president of
SLATE Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic ro ...
; co-author with
John J. Abt John Jacob Abt (May 1, 1904 – August 10, 1991) was an Americans, American lawyer and politician, who spent most of his career as general counsel, chief counsel to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and was a member of the Communist Party and the So ...
, notable_works = , title = , term = , predecessor = , successor = , party =
CPUSA The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
, movement =
Communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society ...
, opponents = , boards = , criminal_charges = , criminal_penalty = , criminal_status = , spouse = , partner = , children = , parents = Seymour and Vivian Myerson , relatives = , family = , awards = Michael Gene Myerson (born 1940) is an American writer and member of the
Communist Party of the USA The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
, best known for serving as president of
SLATE Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic ro ...
(1961–1962) and co-authoring the memoir of
Ware Group The Ware Group was a covert organization of Communist Party USA operatives within the United States government in the 1930s, run first by Harold Ware (1889–1935) and then by Whittaker Chambers (1901–1961) after Ware's accidental death on Augu ...
member and CPUSA counsel
John J. Abt John Jacob Abt (May 1, 1904 – August 10, 1991) was an Americans, American lawyer and politician, who spent most of his career as general counsel, chief counsel to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and was a member of the Communist Party and the So ...
(1993).


Background

Michael Gene Myerson was born in 1940 in Washington, DC, the son of Seymour (died 1987) and Vivian Myerson (1911–2011). His father came from a Yiddish-speaking, Orthodox, Rumanian Jewish home in Chicago, who spent his life under the name "Mike." His mother's parents came from Ukraine and Lithuania. He has two brothers, Alan and Mark. During World War II, they were living in Washington, DC, where his father was an architect for the
War Production Board The War Production Board (WPB) was an agency of the United States government that supervised war production during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established it in January 1942, with Executive Order 9024. The WPB replaced the S ...
and his mother an interior decorator. (He describes himself as a "child of a blacklisted set designer" during McCarthyism, ) whose mentor was CPUSA executive committee member Gil Green. ) In 1945, his family left Washington because his parents were both communists and moved to Los Angeles. (During the 1970s, his parents claimed that the police had harassed them at their home in the
Echo Park Echo Park is a neighborhood in the east- central region of Los Angeles, California. Located to the northwest of Downtown, it is bordered by Silver Lake to the west and Chinatown to the east. The culturally diverse neighborhood has become known ...
district of Los Angeles. In 1977, his father sued the
Los Angeles Police Department The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal Police, police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,974 police officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the thir ...
and in 1982 won an out-of-court settlement for $27,5000.)


Career

In 1958, Myerson arrived as a sophomore at the
University of California-Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...
, where he took part in the
Free Speech Movement The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a massive, long-lasting student protest which took place during the 1964–65 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. The Movement was informally under the central leadership of B ...
. Almost from his arrival, he was on the executive committee of
SLATE Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic ro ...
, an early
New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, ...
free speech organization based at Berkeley. In 1961, he became SLATE president through 1962. Shortly thereafter, he graduated and was kicked off campus. In 1962, Myerson became chairman and executive of the United States Festival Committee Inc. to the Communist World Festival in
Helsinki, Finland Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...
, cited in a 1962 article in the ''
Harvard Crimson The Harvard Crimson are the intercollegiate athletic teams of Harvard College. The school's teams compete in NCAA Division I. As of 2013, there were 42 Division I intercollegiate varsity sports teams for women and men at Harvard, more than at ...
'', and became embroiled in some controversy when he claimed that this festival was "Communist-dominated." Myerson was member of the
National Student Association The United States National Student Association (NSA) was a confederation of college and university student governments that was in operation from 1947 to 1978. Founding and early years The NSA was founded at a conference at the University of Wisc ...
(NSA) on its left-wing, unlike
Tom Hayden Thomas Emmet Hayden (December 11, 1939October 23, 2016) was an American social and political activist, author, and politician. Hayden was best known for his role as an anti-war, civil rights, and intellectual activist in the 1960s, authoring th ...
and Al Haber, who were more centrist. In 1963, he joined a study ground he called a "
W.E.B. DuBois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in ...
Club" or "Marxist study youth group and equated with "Labor's Youth League... an arm of the Communist Party" and also state "to be in the
Young Communist League The Young Communist League (YCL) is the name used by the youth wing of various Communist parties around the world. The name YCL of XXX (name of country) originates from the precedent established by the Communist Youth International. Examples of YC ...
was not to be in the Communist Party... I think it was an age thing." He helped for an "Ad Hoc Committee to End Discrimination" in the San Francisco Bay area to support the
NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
and
CORE Core or cores may refer to: Science and technology * Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages * Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding * Core (optical fiber), the signal-carrying portion of an optical fiber * Core, the centra ...
.
Harry Bridges Harry Bridges (28 July 1901 – 30 March 1990) was an Australian-born American union leader, first with the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA). In 1937, he led several chapters in forming a new union, the International Longshore a ...
' daughter participated. In 1964, he protested the presidential campaign of
Barry Goldwater Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician and United States Air Force officer who was a five-term U.S. Senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–1987) and the United States Republican Party, Republ ...
as well as US President
Lyndon Baynes Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
for his position on the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
. Myerson became a "Vietnam expert" based on a popular pamphlet he wrote on the war. In 1965, he organized a delegation to an Anti-Vietnam War Congress in Helsinki. There, a delegation from the National Liberation Front (NLF) from North Vietnam invited him to visit, based on his pamphlet. In August 1965, he traveled there with three other Americans: Harold Supriano, Christopher Koch, and Richard Ward. After that, Myerson went on a six-month tour of the US and spoke out against the Viet Nam War. In 1966, Myerson left the Berkeley area in 1966 and went to New York City, where his older brother lived. That year, he described himself, as a "non-Communist, pro-American, and pro-human" in ''
The Chicago Defender ''The Chicago Defender'' is a Chicago-based online African-American newspaper. It was founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott and was once considered the "most important" newspaper of its kind. Abbott's newspaper reported and campaigned against Jim ...
''. In 1967, he appeared in a photo a ''
Daily Worker The ''Daily Worker'' was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, attempts were ...
'' photo with Tom Hayden, Stanley Aronowitz, Juan Angel Silen, Paul Krassner, and H. Rap Brown (Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin). In 1969, he was associated with an allegedly communist-affiliated Tri-Continental Information System. In 1970, he described much of these events in the book ''These are the Good Old Days''. In 1977, Myerson was a member of the central committee of the CPUSA as well as executive director of the US Peace Council, an affiliate of the
World Peace Council The World Peace Council (WPC) is an international organization with the self-described goals of advocating for universal disarmament, sovereignty and independence and peaceful co-existence, and campaigns against imperialism, weapons of mass de ...
. In 1992, Myerson left the CPUSA along with
Herbert Aptheker Herbert Aptheker (July 31, 1915 – March 17, 2003) was an American Marxist historian and political activist. He wrote more than 50 books, mostly in the fields of African-American history and general U.S. history, most notably, ''American Negro ...
,
Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, scholar, and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A feminist and a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member o ...
, Gil Green, and
Charlene Mitchell Charlene Alexander Mitchell (June 8, 1930 – December 14, 2022) was an American international socialist, feminist, labor and civil rights activist. In 1968, she became the first Black woman candidate for President of the United States. In the ...
. In 1993, CPUSA counsel John J. Abt published his memoir, ''Advocate and Activist : Memoirs of an American Communist Lawyer'', co-written with Myerson. In 1994, Myerson accused CPUSA leader
Gus Hall Gus Hall (born Arvo Kustaa Halberg; October 8, 1910 – October 13, 2000) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and a perennial candidate for List of United States presidential candidates, president of the United Sta ...
of living a "good bourgeois life" including "an estate in fashionable Hampton Bays." In 1997, a ''New York Times'' obituary for Gil Green named Myerson as a "family friend." Myerson also sorted Green's papers.


Personal life

On November 2, 1961, Myerson married Diane Burke; they divorced in 1966.


Legacy

James W. Clinton wrote a whole chapter on Myerson in ''Loyal Opposition'' (1995). Myerson also appears in Phillip Abbott Luce ''The New Left'' (1966), David Allen's ''The Dream of the New Left'' (1995), and Anthony Ashbolt's ''A Cultural History of the Radical Sixties in the San Francisco Bay Area'' (2015).


Works

;Books * ''These are the Good Old Days: Coming of Age as a Radical in America's Late, Late Years'' (1970) * ''Memories of Underdevelopment: The Revolutionary Films of Cuba'' (1973) * ''Watergate: Crime in the Suites'' (1973) * ''Nothing Could Be Finer'' (1978) * ''The ILGWU: A Union That Fights for Lower Wages'' (1972–1983?) * ''Advocate and Activist : Memoirs of an American Communist Lawyer'' (1993) ;Articles * "The Legacy of
Clinton Jencks Clinton Jencks (March 1, 1918 – December 15, 2005) was an American lifelong activist in labor and social justice causes, most famous for union organizing among New Mexico's miners, acting in the 1954 film '' Salt of the Earth'' (where he portra ...
," ''Monthly Review'' (2020) * "A Portrait of Gil Green," ''
Monthly Review The ''Monthly Review'', established in 1949, is an independent socialist magazine published monthly in New York City. The publication is the longest continuously published socialist magazine in the United States. History Establishment Following ...
'' (2021)


See also

*
John J. Abt John Jacob Abt (May 1, 1904 – August 10, 1991) was an Americans, American lawyer and politician, who spent most of his career as general counsel, chief counsel to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and was a member of the Communist Party and the So ...
*
Gil Green (communist) Gil Green (September 24, 1906 – May 4, 1997) was a leading figure in the Communist Party of the United States of America until 1991. He is best remembered as the leader of the party's youth section, the Young Communist League, during the tumultu ...
*
Communist Party of the United States of America The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
*
SLATE Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic ro ...
*
New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, ...


References


External links


2014 Oral History
{{DEFAULTSORT:Myerson, Michael 20th-century American writers American political activists Members of the Communist Party USA 1940 births Living people