Tom Hayden, Famed Anti-Vietnam War Activist, Dies At 76

Tom Hayden, a staunch defender of liberal causes and Chicago Seven died on October 23 after succumbing to a lengthy disease in Santa Monica, California. He was 76.

Hayden became popular for his involvement in the Chicago Seven trial as well as protests against the Vietnam War. His marriage with actress Jane Fonda for 17 years also put him on spotlight.

Once tagged as a traitor by his critics, Hayden left his past behind and won a seat in the California Assembly and Senate, where he became a champion of environment and education in his almost two decade of service.

He maintained his advocacy against war for many years and became a prolific writer and lecturer pushing for improvement of U.S. political institutions, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

According to the Los Angeles Times, his name became popular in national politics in 1962 as a principal author of a student manifesto that turned out as the ideological foundation of Vietnam War demonstrations.

The Justice Department of President Nixon prosecuted Hayden in the renowned "Chicago 7" trial because of the violent protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Hayden later married Fonda. The couple toured the nation criticizing the war; afterwards they formed a California political organization that supported many liberal candidates in the 1970s and 1980s. Among the measures they backed was Proposition 65, the bill requiring bars, gas stations and grocery stores to post cancer-warning labels and signage.

Hayden was born to a middle class family in Royal Oak, Michigan, a Detroit suburb, on December 11, 1939. His father was an accountant at Chrysler while his mother was a film librarian at local schools.

Hayden was editor in chief of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor campus newspaper where his passion for activism was kindled after being fascinated by the growing civil rights movement in the South.