Memorial ceremony for Tom Hayden in Hanoi

(VNF) - A ceremony in commemoration of Tom Hayden, an American antiwar and civil rights activist, took place in Hanoi on October 28^th.

The event saw the presence of Mrs. Nguyen Thi Binh, former Vice State President of Vietnam and Chairwoman of the Vietnam Peace and Development Foundation; Mr. Don Tuan Phong, Vice President and Secretary-General of the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations (VUFO); Ambassador Nguyen Tam Chien, President of Vietnam-US Association; Mr. Pham Van Chuong, Chairman of the Vietnam Committee for Asian - African - Latin America Solidarity and Cooperation; and representatives of many peace, solidarity and friendship organizations.

Vice President of the Vietnam Peace Committee Nguyen Van Huynh spoke at the memorial ceremony. (Photo: Dai Son/VNF)

Speaking at the event, Vice President of the Vietnam Peace Committee Nguyen Van Huynh said the death on October 23^rd of Tom Hayden, a long-time friend of Vietnam, is a great loss for his family and his supporters in both the US and Vietnam.

The Vietnam Peace Committee, the Vietnam-US Society and many Vietnamese people have sent condolence messages to Hayden’s family.

Former Vice President and Chairwoman of the Vietnam Peace and Development Foundation Nguyen Thi Binh wrote in her letter that Vietnam shares the loss with Hayden’s family and Americans.

“Since early 1960, Hayden was among the first American who knew Vietnam as a nation and a country, not a war,” Mrs. Binh noted in the letter.

“Mr. Hayden will always be with us for the friendship between Vietnam and the US, for peace and justice in Vietnam, in his hometown and in the world,” stated Mr. Huynh at the ceremony.

Delegates attended the ceremony in commemoration of Mr.Tom Hayden, a wholehearted and loyal friend of Vietnamese. (Photo: Dai Son/VNF)

Born on December 11^th, 1939, Tom Hayden began his activist campaigns as a college student. He wrote many articles and nearly 20 books on peace, human rights and environmental protection, including three specifically about Vietnam. Hayden served a combined 18 years in the California State Assembly and State Senate (1982-2000).

In the early 1960s, Hayden, who studied at the University of Michigan, spoke out against the Vietnam War when he helped write a manifesto for the Students for a Democratic Society known as the Port Huron Statement. The document defined "young people as agents of social change and calling for participatory democracy," he wrote.

In the years that followed, he went on to take part in Civil Rights Freedom Rides through the South and helped organize the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago that led to his and other members of the Chicago 7 being charged with, and eventually cleared of, inciting riots.

His opposition to the war grew, and he traveled to the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi several times as part of the antiwar movement. As the '60s passed, Hayden's role in a burgeoning antiwar movement grew, and the movement expanded to include a wide range of citizens, including members of the Black Panther party and conscientious objectors.

In 1973, he married actress Jane Fonda, who was herself an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War. Both Hayden and Fonda were demonized by the political right after she visited North Vietnam in 1972 and was photographed posed on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun.

He remained an enduring voice against war and spent his later years as a prolific writer and lecturer advocating for reform of America's political institutions.

At the ceremony, delegates bowed their head for a moment of silence to honor Mr. Tom Hayden, a wholehearted and loyal friend of Vietnamese./.

( Compiled by VNF )