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question everything

(47,271 posts)
Thu Jun 12, 2014, 01:39 PM Jun 2014

"An unknown professor"

This is how Brat, who defeated Cantor, is described.

So I am just curious of whether this is how Wellstone was described. We did not live in MN in the 90s, but he did gain a national prominence and I knew I liked him when a national report - CNN or one of the networks - showed him feeding a squirrel sitting on a bench in Washington shortly after his arrival.


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"An unknown professor" (Original Post) question everything Jun 2014 OP
Ddin't Wellston teach at Carleton? BainsBane Jun 2014 #1
He did teach at Carleton n/t dflprincess Jun 2014 #3
He was not unknown to certain groups of political activists. scarletwoman Jun 2014 #2
1982 race ISUGRADIA Jun 2014 #4

BainsBane

(53,003 posts)
1. Ddin't Wellston teach at Carleton?
Thu Jun 12, 2014, 04:30 PM
Jun 2014

That's a pretty good job. I don't think he could have been "unknown" in his field and kept that job. Unknown to the media is another story.

scarletwoman

(31,893 posts)
2. He was not unknown to certain groups of political activists.
Thu Jun 12, 2014, 08:06 PM
Jun 2014

Wikipedia has a fairly good biography of Wellstone:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wellstone#Early_career_and_activism

Early career and activism[edit]

In August 1969, Wellstone accepted a tenure-track position at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, where he taught political science until his election to the Senate in 1990.[3] During the 1970s and 1980s, he also began community organizing, working with the working poor and other politically disenfranchised communities. He founded the Organization for a Better Rice County, a group consisting mainly of single parents on welfare. The organization advocated for public housing, affordable health care, improved public education, free school lunches, and a publicly funded day care center. In 1978, he published his first book, How the Rural Poor Got Power: Narrative of a Grassroots Organizer, chronicling his work with the organization.[3]

Wellstone was twice arrested during this period for civil disobedience.[6] The Federal Bureau of Investigation began a case file on him after his arrest in May 1970 for protesting against the Vietnam War at the Federal Office Building in Minneapolis. In 1984 Wellstone was arrested again, for trespassing during a foreclosure protest at a bank.[6]

Wellstone extended his activism to the Minnesota labor movement. In the summer of 1985, he walked the picket line with striking P-9ers during a labor dispute at the Hormel Meat Packing plant in Austin, Minnesota. The Minnesota National Guard was called in during the strike to ensure that Hormel could hire permanent replacement workers.[3]

The trustees of Carleton College briefly fired Wellstone in the late 1970s for his activism and lack of academic publications. After his students held a sit-in, the trustees agreed to rehire him and provide him with tenure. Wellstone remains the youngest tenured faculty member in Carleton's history.[7]

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