Last week while finishing rehousing the collection we found a box that contained a few hundred poster sized (16×20) copies of material that Gordon Hall distributed. They contained press about Gordon Hall and also some items that he published. The item highlighted today is a list of Left Wing organizations that Gordon Hall compiled. It contains locations and organizational histories of the following groups: Communist Party, USA, Young Workers Liberation League, Progressive Labor Party, Students for a Democratic Society, Socialist Workers Party, Young Socialist Alliance, Student Mobilization Committee, Youth Against War and Fascism, Old Mole Collective, Peoples Information Center, Black Panther Party and National Committee to Combat Fascism.

Scorecard of the Radical Left (Gordon Hall)ca. 1970

The Weathermen were founded in 1969 as a faction of the Students for a Democratic Society. Original members included: Karen Ashley, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, John Jacobs, Jeff Jones, Gerry Long, Howie Machtinger, Jim Mellen, Terry Robbins, Mark Rudd, and Steve Tappis.[1]

The Weathermen later came to be known as the Weather Underground and the Weather Underground Organization. They became very well-known due to their provocative literature and acts of violence. Through the late 1960s and mid-1970s the Weathermen took credit for two dozen bombings. [2] This included an accidental bombing in March 1970 that killed 3 Weathermen in their New York City apartment.

The item featured here focuses on Benjamin H. Brown, director of the Center for International Affairs of Harvard University. In the Fall of 1970 the Weathermen bombed the CFIA injuring Brown. Three members of the Weathermen; Eric Mann, Henry Olson and Phil Niles were tried and convicted on assault and battery and disturbing the peace charges.[3]

Weathemen November 1970

The Hall Hoag collection contains roughly 50 items from the Weathermen.

 Learn More:

Weathermen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground

CFIA: http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/

The picture below is the cover of the March 2, 1989, edition of The National Alliance, the major publication of the New Alliance Party. The NAP was founded in 1979, in New York, by Fred Newman, the creator of Social Therapy,  and Lenora Fulani. The NPA disbanded in 1995. The organization is best known for getting Fulani, an African American woman, on the presidential ballot in all 50 states in the 1988 election marking the first time this happened in American history. Fulani received less than .2% of the vote nationally.[1] The party is somewhat hard to classify because although it had socialist tendencies it later became associated with Ross Perot’s right wing Reform Party. In general Newman was somewhat of an enigma along the lines of Lyndon LaRoche.

The images on the cover are a reference to the NAP calling into question the authority of Chip Bertlet, who, “criticized the authoritarian hierarchies and totalitarian control methods of groups working on the left”[2] including the NAP specifically in his article “Fiction and the New Alliance Party.”[3] Bertlet was concerned about the “cult like” nature of Newman’s group. A similar accusation was made in the book, “On the Edge” by Dennis Tourish and Tim Wohlforth.[4]

The National Alliance March 3, 1989

There are over 400 items from the National Alliance, Fred Newman and Lenora Fulani in the Hall Hoag Collection.

Note: This is not to be confused with the white nationalist group of the same name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Alliance_(United_States)

Learn more:

New Alliance Party: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Alliance_Party

Fred Newman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Newman_(philosopher)

Social Therapy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Therapy

Lenora Fulani: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenora_Fulani

Chip Bertlet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_Berlet

Lyndon LaRoche: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_LaRouche