Don
White
Don
White
The
hardest working heart in
By John
Johnson
A man called a good friend by more
people in LA,
Don sort of compartmentalized his life and kept them
separate. He had his family, many up in
Don was a bit vane, rarely if ever
was he seen without his toupee.
His politics were somewhat aligned
with those of the Communist Party. I
don't know if he was ever a member but he certainly exhibited the work ethnic
many ex CPers had. Thus, his politics
were more cautious and structurally orientated than some of those more
radical. I did have some minor
differences with him over what I considered his overly "political correctness"
of the day.
Once in Change-Links I referred to
an activist as beautiful, meaning the breath of her commitment as well as being
attractive. Don accused me of being
sexist, so in the next issue I referred to him as "the handsome Don
White". He seemed to liked that.
Some could annoy the hell out of
him, some he didn't really care for, the left gets some cookie folks coming
around but I never saw him get angry or write anyone out. Sometimes I think he thought of some of us as
his students, who sometimes needed to be gently but forcefully corrected. He would rarely turn away those that ask for
his help, he would at times grouse about some request but if it could fit in
his schedule he would grin and bare it.
I don't think he wanted anything to
interfere with his hope and joy in the human race, while being nitty gritty
brilliant and deadly serious about what needed to be done to make our world
more humane.
Thus he had such an unbounded energy for
meetings, actions, demonstrations that I think it would take a supplicated
mathematical formula to calculate how many he actually attended. About 8 years my senior he wore me out during
the 4 days of street actions during the 2000 Democratic Convention protest. We were both trying to act as monitors (he
was central command) to try and forestall any actions that might provoke a
police attack. As I noticed some things
were heating up, I knew he was the only person I should contact to try to calm
things down, but you couldn't hear cell phones and I didn't have a
walky-talky. I set out to find him but
we missed each other in the massive crowd and the police did charge the mostly
peaceful attendees with horses and rubber bullets. I think the police always intended to make
that charge, but I was never really sure.
The last time I spoke to Don was a
couple weeks ago when I alerted him to the arrest of one of the killers of
martyred Chilean folk singer Victor Jara, during the Allende coup. We had a mutual friend Paul Baker (an ex-Irish
Priest), who had dedicated much of his musical life to the memory of Victor and
we wanted to make sure he had heard the news.
Don said he would contact him.
Paul had lived in LA years earlier, helping to protect a young El
Salvadorian women who was getting threats from El Salvadorian Death Squads
members here in LA. Don was helping him.
Thus one of the lasting legacies of
Don White was not just his real physical courage but all the people he
introduced to us and the people we gladly introduced to Don and his ability to
bring all of us together.
Some Bio Information:
Born in
As a dynamic speaker, he was a
fixture of the left, often serving as Master of Ceremonies or moderator at
events sponsored by a wide range of progressive organizations and coalitions.
He was regularly the guy who made the pitch for money at demonstrations as well
as social and political events - because he put people at ease, could make them
laugh, and made them want to give and be a part of something much larger than
themselves. As a result, Don raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for scores
of progressive and humanitarian organizations.
Don came to
In 1976, Don traveled to
In addition, Don was a long time
member of the Committee of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and an
organizer of scores of city-wide coalitions addressing various other
progressive causes including peace in the
Don was a founding member of the
Southern California Fair Trade Network which organized for the WTO protests in
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Don was due to attend a family
wedding in
Don did not have a healthy diet,
though he ran around the city alot, I do not think he exercised. It had been over 100 degrees for many days
and that hard working heart probably just needed some rest.
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The
video linked below shows Don addressing a rally against the
war in March of 2005.
http://la.indymedia
http://video.
Links to
some photos of Don and a CISPES blog
http://la.indymedia
http://cispes.