The Free University of New York: The New Left’s Self-Education and Transborder Activism Toru Umezaki Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2013 © 2013 Toru Umezaki All rights reserved ABSTRACT The Free University of New York: The New Left’s Self-Education and Transborder Activism Toru Umezaki This dissertation addresses the unique history of the Free University (School) of New York (FUNY), 1965-1968, in the context of the American radical movement that occurred amidst the international upheaval of national liberations. The Free University of New York was founded by young radical intellectuals who were inspired by the struggles for self-determination that were taking place in Third World countries. Radicals concerned with Third World liberation movements created the anti-Vietnam War group May 2nd Movement, from which the Free University was born. Although FUNY only existed for a short period of time, from 1965 to 1968 it functioned as a center for radical education and politics for intellectuals in leftist circles within New York and in the United States as a whole. The uniqueness of the Free University lay in its experimental education and in its instructors’ activities beyond the U.S. borders. The radical education at the Free University clearly reflected the interests of New Left intellectuals in the Sixties in America. The transborder activism of the Free University instructors included organizing an international pacifist movement against the U.S. involvement in the War in Vietnam, discussing the meaning of liberation with European intellectuals, and importing the idea of national liberation from the Third World revolutions. The FUNY activists played a significant role in the International War Crimes (Russell-Sartre) Tribunal in Europe in 1967, which accused the U.S. of atrocities in Vietnam. They also participated in the Dialectics of Liberation Congress in London in 1967 and the Cultural Congress of Havana in 1968 to discuss the relevance of liberation and self- determination in the First and Third worlds. FUNY instructors brought these ideas back with them and built the philosophical foundation for the domestic protest activities in post-1968 America. The activities of the Free University of New York were considered to be part of the larger New Left movement in the United States. However, the mainstream New Leftists in the United States not only rejected the “foreign” ideas of national liberation and the accusation of U.S. war crimes, but also marginalized the New York radical intellectual circle as an extremist fringe of the American left. This conflict reveals the peculiar nature of the American New Left movement in the momentum of the global sixties. Nevertheless, the Free University of New York contributed significantly to the development of the American Sixties by bridging the gap between the intellectual position of leftist activists during the Third World revolutions in the late fifties and beyond and the struggle of people of color for decolonization within the United States in the later sixties and seventies. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter One “Breaking through the Cane-Curtain”: The Cuban Revolution and the Emergence of New York’s Radical Youth, 1961-1965 22 Chapter Two “It’s a Groovy Thing to Do”: The Founding of the Free University of New York 50 Chapter Three “Free U. People”: The Radical Self-Education of the American New Left 77 Chapter Four The Free University and the Vietnam War: Building a Domestic Base for the Movement 118 Chapter Five International Efforts to Stop U.S. Atrocities in Vietnam: The International War Crimes Tribunal, 1966-67 141 Chapter Six Ways for Revolution: The Discourse of Liberation and the Closing of the Free University of New York 179 Conclusion 219 Bibliography 230 Appendix 245 i ACKNOWLEGEMENTS Ever since I started my graduate study in U.S. history, numerous individuals, both in the United States and in Japan, have generously supported me and followed the development of my work. I owe a special debt to Eric Foner, my graduate advisor, whose careful advice and patience guided me as I completed this work. Alan Brinkeley’s insightful comments directed my argument. Elizabeth Blackmar was willing to spend her time listening to me and kindly shared her wisdom. Volker Berghahn encouraged me with his comments from the perspective of international history. Ira Katznelson gave me very productive words of advice. Carol Gluck taught me how historians should think and argue about the world. Charles Tilly shared with me his deep sociological knowledge of social movements. So many scholars and friends inspired me in New York. The community of scholars at Columbia University surely nurtured my work. I would also like to acknowledge and thank the librarians of Columbia University, City College of New York, New York University, and Duke University. Also, I appreciate the staff and friends of the Fulbright Association who gave not only financial but also moral supports for my study in the United States. I began my study of the American Sixties back in the late-1990s at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo. I cannot overstate my gratitude to my undergraduate, graduate, and life-long mentor Daizaburo Yui whose intellectual and personal support has introduced me to the academic community in Japan. Makoto Tsujiuchi was another mentor in Tokyo who taught me how historians live sincerely in their times. Shuichiro ii Yazawa is a sociologist who taught me what my “problem consciousness” should be. Satoshi Nakano’s keen sense in international history provided a significant clue for my study. Hiroshi Takayama also strongly encouraged me to go abroad when I was an undergraduate student. Professors at the Center for Pacific and American Studies at the University of Tokyo also gave me a lot of opportunities to join academic activities in Japan. I give a special thanks to Jun Furuya, Yasuo Endo, Masako Notoji, Fumiko Nishizaki, and Hiroshi Okayama. Without Yujin Yaguchi’s committed help, I would not have gotten a chance to go to New York City to study at Columbia. Kenryu Hashikawa was my senior at graduate school at Columbia and he set a great example for me. I have received the wisdom of people in such academic associations as the Japanese Society for American History, the Japanese Association for American Studies, and the Japanese Association for Contemporary Historical Studies. I have benefitted greatly from the Transborder Sixties study group organized by Daizaburo Yui. The friends who gave me welcome criticism, encouragement, and hospitality in Japan are too numerous to list. I am especially thankful to Kosuzu Abe, Katsuyuki Murata, Yumiko Nakano, Yasumasa Fujinaga, Yoshiyuki Kido, Kazuteru Omori, Koichi Kato, Masanori Nakagawa, Yoshiko Uehara, Hiroyuki Matsubara, Ichiro Miyata, Fuminori Minamikawa, Hironobu Nakamura, Walter Dawson, David Wright, Nancy Kwak, Brian Byun, Tim White, Ted Wilkinson, Moshik Temkin, Nicole Cohen, Aaron Skabulend, Dominique Reill, and Carmen Boon. Colleagues and students at Ferris University in Yokohama also provided me with friendship and the joy of teaching. iii Thanks to my parents, Satoshi and Kazuko Umezaki who have patiently supported me throughout my life. Satoshi was my good intellectual companion and Kazuko was my reference for common sense. It was my deepest regret that Satoshi could not read my competed dissertation because of his sudden passing just a few months ago. Nevertheless, I have been encouraged by family members including my elder sister, Sayaka. Most of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my partner, Kazuyo Tsuchiya, a sincere and righteous historian who read my writing and always provided warm and stimulating comments, and to my son, Joe, whose humor and sound development have been the indispensable source of my inspiration. iv 1 INTRODUCTION On a day early in the spring of 1966, approximately twenty-five students gathered in a tiny classroom arranged in a loft apartment above a café in the East Village to learn about “Marxism and American Decadence.” The instructor of the course was Allen Krebs, President of the newly established Free University of New York. A reporter from Harper's Magazine joined the class and reported that Krebs, in a turtleneck sweater, was “continuously reigniting his pipe, as a university president should,” as he leaned back “precariously” on a chair with his booted feet propped on a desk and lectured on the topic. After an active discussion, the class came to conclude that the United States was “a dismal place to live in unless you are awfully rich,” and that the country was “a force for evil in the world.”1 The Free University [School] of New York (FUNY)2 was founded as the nation’s first alternative educational institution of the New Left on East 14th Street, New York, in the summer of 1965. The instructors of the Free University came together from circles of radical intellectuals, bohemian artists, and political movement organizers from the neighborhoods of New York City. The organizers of FUNY 1 Edward Grossman, “New York's Schoolhouse for the Left,” Harper's Magazine 232, no. 1391 (April 1966), 76. 2 The Free University of New York changed its official name to the Free School of New York in order to comply with a New York State order in 1967. This was due to the fact that FUNY lacked the appropriate facility of a “university.” This dissertation uses the Free University of New York as the name because, even after this change, people still referred to the school as such. 2 claimed that they got the idea for the Free University from previous educational activities in the movement such as the Freedom Schools in the Southern Civil Rights Movement and the Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkeley.