Staughton Lynd, who died last year, aged 92, may be one of the most important US activists you’ve never heard of.
A historian by training, Lynd played important roles in both the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, before spending decades nurturing grassroots labour organisations and working in solidarity with prisoners locked up in so-called ‘supermax’ prisons.
“Perhaps the only person who could unite the New Left and Old Left, speak truth to power, and also be a…