Journalist, political activist and author Marty Jezer died Saturday

[ElsewheresDaughter]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0613-05.htm

Storied Writer and Activist Jezer Dies
by Randy Holhut

BRATTLEBORO -- 4 at his Prospect Street home, after a long fight against testicular cancer.

The writer and activist part of Jezer's life is storied. He was deeply involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements in the 1960s.

His biographies -- "Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel" (1992) and "Rachel Carson: Biologist and Author" (1988) -- and his 1982 history of post-World War II America, "The Dark Ages: Life in the United States 1945-1960," are notable works of scholarship.

His weekly columns for the Reformer were models of logic, well seasoned with passion.

But one can't separate that part of his life from the other part of Jezer's life -- his lifelong struggle with stuttering, a story he told in his 1997 book, "Stuttering: A Life Bound Up In Words."

Stuttering affected every aspect of Jezer's life. Rather than let his lack of verbal fluency defeat him, he eventually came to terms with it and carved out a rich life in the process.

A Bronx tale

Born on Nov. 21 1940, Jezer grew up in the Bronx, a third-generation Jew born into what he called "a magical time to grow up in New York City" -- the late 1940s and early 1950s.

"New York City was the biggest and greatest city in the world -- everybody said so -- and my friends and I, sauntering cockily through the streets, felt a part of it," he wrote in "Stuttering."

He played lots of stickball and schoolyard basketball, breezed through school with excellent grades, and developed his lifelong love of jazz and rhythm and blues.

Like many of his generation, he read Jack Kerouac's "On The Road" in 1958, which he said "gave my life a purpose. I would become a beatnik, live for truth, poetry, and art." Though he was going to Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, Jezer found himself spending many of his weekends in Greenwich Village.

The nice, quiet Jewish boy found himself joining the ranks of a rebellion against conformity as he became, as he put it, "a witness to the birth of the 1960s: the civil rights movement, the counterculture, rock and roll, political activism, feminism, the politics of identity, the idea of personal and political liberation. As I became more aware that others shared my feelings of restlessness, I became more confident and even more rebellious."

Of course, in the waning years of the 1950s, it wasn't easy being, as he put it, a rebel "who at first, had a stutter rather than a cause."

Back then, Jezer wrote, "nonconformity was viewed as a negative, hostile and self-destructive act. ... But I persevered and transformed my rebellion into a way of life."

"On The Road" and Henry David Thoreau's "Walden" inspired Jezer to be a writer. "I always felt I had something to say and writing is an obvious compensation for a person who stutters," he wrote.

[Matilda]

1. He was a talented writer, and a great spirit.

I learned of his impending death last week through this article in
Common Dreams:

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0609-25.htm

What a lovely idea - to let someone know how you feel before they
die.

I first heard of Marty Jezer through his biog of Abbie Hoffmann, and
I always enjoyed reading his columns wherever I found them. His
political beliefs were obviously deeply held, and always backed by
sound knowledge and reason. I'm sure I would have liked him.