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annm4peace

(6,119 posts)
Mon Jan 16, 2012, 03:35 PM Jan 2012

American hero, freedom rider, life long activist and educator Marv Davidov died





if you want to be inspired read the link below.

http://thewildreed.blogspot.com/2012/01/marv-davidov-1931-2012.html

"As many of my Minnesota readers would know, Marv Davidov was an icon within the local justice and peace community. He was the founder of the Honeywell Project, a Freedom Rider during the Civil Rights era of the 1960s, and a participant in the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride of 2003. For over 50 years he was a tireless non-violent revolutionary, dedicated to facilitating positive social transformation through organizing and activism.

"'An inspiration to many'

He described himself as a "nonviolent revolutionary" in an autobiography he wrote with Carol Masters.

One of Davidov's admirers was Daniel Ellsberg, a White House consultant, who leaked the Pentagon Papers about U.S. military decision-making in Vietnam to the media. Ellsberg, who later became a peace activist, helped raise money for the Honeywell Project at Davidov's invitation.

"Thanks to people like him, we're still hanging on as a species," Ellsberg said. "His nonviolence and his indefatigability and energy are an inspiration to many people.

"He's lived a good life, and I told him so" when he spoke to Davidov by phone on Friday, Ellsberg said.

This week, as Davidov's medical condition worsened, a number of peace activist friends stayed near him daily or sat in a waiting room outside his door."


http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/137350833.html

Marv Davidov, an iconic figure of the Minnesota peace movement who founded and led the Honeywell Project in a decades-long campaign to halt the production of anti-personnel weapons by Honeywell Inc., died Saturday afternoon in Minneapolis. He was 80, and had suffered from a number of health problems.


For years during the Vietnam War era, Davidov carried around a deactivated cluster bomb, the size of a softball, to show anyone who would listen that Honeywell was creating weapons being used by the U.S. military. He said the weapons indiscriminately killed innocent civilians in southeast Asia.

Honeywell eventually spun off its defense contract work to Alliant Techsystems.

Davidov estimated that he was arrested 40 or 50 times, mainly in antiwar and civil rights demonstrations.

He was one of the original Freedom Riders, young people who rode on buses through the South in 1961 to desegregate bus transportation and bus terminals.

He and five other white youths from the Twin Cities were arrested at a black-only lunch counter in a Greyhound bus station in Jackson, Miss., when they refused to comply with police orders to move on."



http://www.twincities.com/ci_19743590




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Even his last few days was interesting with cheating death for a couple more days and being visited by so many.

I'm so glad he was here to see the Occupy Movement and he also saw a defense contract company that made landmines, and clusterbombs.. get forced out of MN.



You too can know Marv. i got myself his book when it 1st came out.. then I realized what an incredible history book it is and ended up buying 3 more and giving them to teacher friends. He shows we can all do something to make this society better.

In his autobiography

http://www.amazon.com/You-Cant-That-Non-violent-Revolutionary/dp/1932472894/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326741386&sr=8-1


(you can order it from a local co-op books store run mostly by Vietnam Vets; MayDay Books.. but you have to call to order the book and they can ship it to you. they are struggling to survive but is in incredible little store full of civil rights, women rights, social justice, anarchist, communist, labor books.

http://maydaybookstore.org/

*******

and this video
I conclude this tribute by sharing (in the following three segments) Lisa Joy LoMurray's 2007 documentary film Marv: Life of an Activist.

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American hero, freedom rider, life long activist and educator Marv Davidov died (Original Post) annm4peace Jan 2012 OP
I lived in Mpls. for 15 years and remember Marv frazzled Jan 2012 #1
This is a great loss to the peace movement proud2BlibKansan Jan 2012 #2
just had to add this picture from St Paul Pioneer Press annm4peace Jan 2012 #3

frazzled

(18,402 posts)
1. I lived in Mpls. for 15 years and remember Marv
Mon Jan 16, 2012, 03:51 PM
Jan 2012

and the Honeywell Project. I remember when Erica Bouza, wife of the city's chief of police, got arrested ... repeatedly! ... for participating.

Thanks for the memories. And may he rest in peace.

annm4peace

(6,119 posts)
3. just had to add this picture from St Paul Pioneer Press
Tue Jan 17, 2012, 02:05 AM
Jan 2012


Freedom Riders are welcomed home to Wold-Chamberlain Field in the Twin Cities. From left in foreground: Marv Davidov, Zev Aelony, David Morton, Eugene Uphoff (with guitar), Claire O'Connor and Robert Baum. (Pioneer Press, File)

http://www.twincities.com/ci_19743590?IADID=Search-www.twincities.com-www.twincities.com
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