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in · flu · ence
to have an effect on the condition or development
of; to cause a change in the character, thought, or action of.
I would like to introduce you to the people who have been the most important influences in my adult life. They include a jazz musician, a photographer, a peace activist, a reformer, a rabbi, and an oral historian. Their music, thoughts, art, and actions have all helped to make me who I am.
| Richard Davis |
| Rabbi Robert Marx |
| Ansel Adams |
| Studs Terkel |
| Jane Addams |
| John Hume |
| Other Influences |
While attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I took a class taught by Richard Davis called Black Music (1920-present). By the end of the semester, I had struck up a friendship with Professor Davis that continues to this day. When he was not busy as a music professor or as one of the world’s premier jazz and classical bassists, Richard found the time to initiate the Madison chapter of the “Institute for the Healing of Racism.”
In 1964, Rabbi Marx co-founded the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (JCUA), a Chicago non-profit committed to combating racism and anti-Semitism in partnership with Chicago’s diverse communities. In 1991, he co-founded the Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues. Rabbi Marx is currently the Rabbi at Congregation Hafaka in Glencoe, Illinois. On a lighter note, my wife Melissa and I first met at the 1997 JCUA annual meeting.
During my high school years I learned how to develop my
own negatives and print my own black and white photographs.
I wanted to be Ansel Adams. From 1944-1958, Adams won
three Guggenheim grants to photograph the national parks.
He served on the Sierra Club Board from 1934-1971. His photographs are
in the permanent collections of many
museums around the world, including the Museum of
Modern Art and The Art Institute of Chicago.
About 15 years ago I found myself seated next to Studs on
a
flight from New York to Chicago, and I have never met a more engaging
human being in my life. His radio broadcast career started back in the
1950’s with interviews for “The Studs
Terkel Program” broadcast on WFMT in Chicago. His first
book of Oral History interviews is called “Division Street:
America. He is a distinguished scholar-in-residence at the Chicago Historical
Society.
Jane Addams founded the social settlement Hull House on
Chicago’s near West Side in 1889. Hull House offered recently arrived
immigrants services like child care for working mothers, an employment
bureau, and a meeting place for trade union groups. Jane Addams’
efforts led to the passage of a federal
child labor law in 1916. Because of her work with the Women’s Peace
Party during World War I, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.
I had the privilege of meeting John Hume during a stop he
made in Chicago in 1997 to promote his new book “Ireland: Politics,
Peace, and Reconciliation.” He helped found the moderate nationalist
Social Democratic and Labour Party in
1970, and became its leader in 1979. He has been widely credited with
bringing Northern Ireland’s unionists and republicans together to
make the peace process possible.
In 1998 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Robert
Kennedy
“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”
In 1968, Robert Kennedy traveled to the Mississippi river delta and to
Appalachia and brought the problems of extreme poverty
to the forefront of national debate.
Woody
Guthrie
“Some men rob you with a gun, some with
a fountain pen.”
It was Woodie Guthrie who, during the Great Depression, transformed the
folk ballad into a vehicle for social protest
and observation.
John
Steinbeck
“Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts…perhaps
the fear of
a loss of power.”
His epic novel “The Grapes of Wrath” led to a wide debate about
the hard lot of migrant laborers, and helped to put agricultural reforms
into effect.
Robert
Frost
“Something there is that doesn’t love
a wall.”
This is the first line in the poem “Mending Walls.” To
me, this poem is a perfect metaphor for what ills our society today. That
is, we need to build understanding in this country, not more walls.
Marion
Wright Edelman
“Speak truth to power.”
Ralph
Ellison
“I am invisible, understand, simply because
people refuse
to see me.”
This line is from Ellison’s novel “The Invisible Man” first
published in 1952
John Kenneth Galbraith
“The conventional view serves to protect
us from the painful
job of thinking.”
