Frank Beacham's Journal

Philip Berrigan, peace activist and former Roman Catholic priest, was born 99 years ago today

Philip Berrigan in 1967

Photo by A. Aubrey Bodine

Philip Berrigan, peace activist and former Roman Catholic priest, was born 99 years ago today.

Berrigan graduated from high school in Syracuse, New York, and was then employed cleaning trains for the New York Central Railroad. He played with a semi-professional baseball team.

In 1943, after a semester of schooling at St. Michael's College, Toronto, Berrigan was drafted into combat duty in World War II. He served in the artillery during the Battle of the Bulge (1945) and later became a Second Lieutenant in the infantry. He was deeply affected by his exposure to the violence of war and the racism of boot camp in the Southern United States.

Berrigan graduated with an English degree from the College of the Holy Cross, a Jesuit university in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1950, he joined the Society of St. Joseph, better known as the Josephite Fathers, a religious society of priests and lay brothers dedicated to serving those of African descent, who were still dealing with the repercussions of slavery and daily segregation in the United States.

After studying at the theological school of the Society, St. Joseph's Seminary in Washington, D.C., he was ordained a priest in 1955. He went on to gain a degree in Secondary Education at Loyola University of the South (1957) and then a Master of Arts degree at Xavier University in 1960, during which time he began to teach.

In addition to his academic responsibilities, Berrigan became active in the Civil Rights movement. He marched for desegregation and participated in sit-ins and bus boycotts.

Berrigan was first imprisoned in 1962 and 1963. During his many prison sentences, he would often hold bible study class and offer legal educational support to other inmates.

As a priest, his activism and arrests met with deep disapproval from the leadership of the Catholic Church. Berrigan was moved to Epiphany Apostolic College, the Josephite seminary college in Newburgh, New York, but he continued his protests.

Berrigan attracted the notice of federal authorities when he and six other anti-war activists were caught trading letters alluding to kidnapping Henry Kissinger and bombing steam tunnels. They were charged with 23 counts of conspiracy, including plans for kidnap and blowing up heating tunnels in Washington.

Although the government spent $2 million on the Harrisburg Seven trial in 1972, they did not win a conviction. This was one of the first reversals suffered by the U.S. government in such cases. Another was The Camden 28 in 1973.

After a life of protest, Berrigan died of liver and kidney cancer at the age of 79 on Dec. 6, 2002.

In a last statement, he said I die with the conviction, held since 1968 and Catonsville, that nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth. “To mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use them, is a curse against God, the human family and the earth itself,” he wrote.

Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University, paid this tribute to Berrigan saying "Mr. Berrigan was one of the great Americans of our time. He believed war didn't solve anything. He went to prison again and again and again for his beliefs. I admired him for the sacrifices he made. He was an inspiration to a large number of people."

On this day in 1967 — 55 years ago — The Beatles met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whose lecture on Transcendental Meditation they had gone to hear at the Hilton Hotel in London

On this day in 1967 — 55 years ago — The Beatles met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whose lecture on Transcendental Meditation they had gone to hear at the Hilton Hotel in London.

Transcendental Meditation involved the silent repetition of a word or sound to produce a state of mind that reduces stress, calms the mind and energizes both mind and body. Encouraged by Pattie Harrison, The Beatles and their partners — minus Ringo and Maureen Starkey, whose second child, Jason, had been born five days previously — attended the lecture.

The Harrisons had become interested in Eastern philosophy during a six-week holiday in Bombay towards the end of 1966. The following year Pattie attended a lecture on Transcendental Meditation at Caxton Hall, London, where she had been given her mantra. Inspired by her new discovery, she encouraged George to accompany her to Maharishi's lecture at the Hilton.

A press conference followed the lecture, after which a 90-minute private audience with Maharishi was held for Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and the rest of their party. The yogi's words left them keen to learn more, and they made arrangements to travel to Bangor, North Wales, the next day to attend the weekend seminar being held there.

The Maharishi invited The Beatles to travel with him to Bangor, in North Wales, to attend more lectures. They accepted his invitation.

In February 1968, the Beatles took their interest a large step forward by traveling to the Maharishi’s home base in northern India. Lennon and wife Cynthia, and Harrison and Pattie Boyd arrived first (Ringo Starr and Paul would soon join them) along with other notable friends such as Beach Boy Mike Love, Donovan and actress Mia Farrow.

During their stay, they would learn more about meditation and would also find time to write many of the songs that would ultimately end up on The Beatles (aka the White Album). “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” “Dear Prudence” (written about Farrow’s sister, also in attendance), “Mother Nature’s Son,” and “Sexy Sadie” were just a few of the songs born out of their experiences there.

“I was really impressed with the Maharishi. I was impressed because he was laughing all the time,” said Ringo. “It was another point of view. It was the first time we’re sort of getting into Eastern philosophies.” McCartney described the stay in India as “very much like a summer camp,” with Starr adding, “It was pretty far out.”

Both McCartney and Starr cut their stay short, while others hung out for close to two months. The harmonious vibes of the trip, however, would soon come to an end when allegations arose about the more earthly interests of the Maharishi in one or more of the females in attendance as well as questions surrounding the Maharishi seeking financial involvement from the Beatles.

Exactly why the Beatles left the Maharishi is up to question. All left abruptly. According to a 2006 statement by Deepak Chopra, the Beatles and their entourage "were doing drugs, taking LSD, at Maharishi's ashram, and he lost his temper with them. He asked them to leave, and they did in a huff." This was confirmed in a 2008 article in The Washington Post that reported "others said the Beatles resumed drug use at the ashram."

Others said the Beatles learned the Maharishi sought financial gain, while others said, the supposedly celibate guru made a pass at female members of the group.

Upon their return, a reporter asked Lennon if the Maharishi was “on the level.” Lennon quipped, “I don’t know what level he’s on, but we had a nice holiday in India and came back rested.”

Michael Lindsay-Hogg is 82 years old today

Michael Lindsay-Hogg is 82 years old today.

Lindsay-Hogg is a director working in film, music video, stage and television. He was born in New York City to actress Geraldine Fitzgerald, and was educated at Trinity School in New York and at Choate School in Connecticut.

Fitzgerald and her husband, Sir Edward Lindsay-Hogg, 4th Baronet (1910–1999), led him to believe that he was their natural son. However, he was later told his biological father was Orson Welles, the actor and film director.

For years, rumors about his true parentage abounded, but Lindsay-Hogg was uninterested in them. He first met Welles as a teenager, acted with him in Ireland and continued to meet with him sporadically for the rest of Welles' life.

Lindsay-Hogg's step-father was Stuart Scheftel, who married Geraldine Fitzgerald when Michael was six, after she had divorced Sir Edward. His career began directing the 1960s British pop program, Ready Steady Go!, a forerunner of MTV-type programming. This work led to an unaired television special, The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (1968), which was finally released in 1996.

In January, 2010 came word that Lindsay-Hogg was going to take a DNA test to determine if famed American filmmaker, Orson Welles, who was friend of the family, was in fact his father. The test gave no result, as the hair from Sir Edward that was used in the test did not contain a follicle.

Confirmation of his true parentage came after Lindsay-Hogg sent a copy of his unpublished autobiography to his mother's friend, Gloria Vanderbilt, who confirmed that Welles was his father.

Lindsay-Hogg's memoir, Luck and Circumstance: A Coming of Age in Hollywood, New York, and Points Beyond, was published in the fall of 2011.

A 2015 Welles biography by Patrick McGilligan, however, reports the impossibility of Welles's paternity. McGilligan said that Fitzgerald left the U.S. for Ireland in May, 1939 and was pregnant at the time she returned in late October, while Welles did not travel overseas during that period.

Some of his notable films include Nasty Habits (film) (1977), The Sound of Murder (1982), The Object of Beauty with Andie MacDowell and John Malkovich (1991), Frankie Starlight (1995) and Waiting for Godot (2001).

In 1994, Lindsay-Hogg directed A Celebration: The Music of Pete Townshend and The Who, also known as Daltrey Sings Townshend. This was a two-night concert at Carnegie Hall produced by Roger Daltrey of the English rock band, The Who, in celebration of his 50th birthday. In 1994, a CD and a VHS video were issued, and in 1998 a DVD was released.

On May 19 and 20, 1966, Lindsay-Hogg directed two pairs of film clips (then known as "filmed inserts") to promote The Beatles’ single, "Paperback Writer." On September 4, 1968 at Twickenham Film Studios, Lindsay-Hogg directed the promotional film for the new single, "Hey Jude," with Paul McCartney himself designing the set. The event is also memorable as it marked Ringo Starr's return to the group after a two-week hiatus, during which he had announced that he had left the band.

The final cut was a combination of several different takes, twelve having been filmed during the entire days session, according to the actor Marc Sinden who was in the film along with his brother, Jeremy.

In 1969, Lindsay-Hogg directed the full-length documentary, Let It Be. In 2000, he directed the VH1 television movie entitled, Two of Us, named after the song of the same name, a track from The Beatles' final album, Let It Be.

The movie is a fictionalized account of April 24, 1976, (six years after the break-up of The Beatles) the day Lorne Michaels made a statement on Saturday Night Live in which he offered The Beatles $3000.00 to appear on his program. The story is told through a series of conversations between John Lennon (Jared Harris) and Paul McCartney (Aidan Quinn).

Above photo by Jonathan Becker

Joseph Campbell was born 118 years ago today

Joseph Campbell was born 118 years ago today.

A mythologist, writer and lecturer, Campbell is best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion.

His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience. His philosophy is often summarized by his phrase: "Follow your bliss."

Campbell was born and raised in White Plains, New York in an upper middle class Irish Catholic family.

As a child, Campbell became fascinated with Native American culture after his father took him to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. It was there where he saw a display of Native American artifacts.

He soon became versed in numerous aspects of Native American society, primarily in Native American mythology.

This led to Campbell's lifelong passion for myth and to his study and mapping of the cohesive threads in mythology that appeared to exist among even disparate human cultures.

In 1921, he graduated from the Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. While at Dartmouth College, he studied biology and mathematics, but decided that he preferred the humanities.

He transferred to Columbia University, where he received his B.A. in English literature in 1925 and M.A. in Medieval literature in 1927.

At Dartmouth, he joined Delta Tau Delta. Campbell was also an accomplished athlete, receiving awards in track and field events. For a time, he was among the fastest half-mile runners in the world.

In 1924, Campbell traveled to Europe with his family. On the ship, during his return trip, he encountered Jiddu Krishnamurti. They discussed Asian philosophy, sparking in Campbell a lifelong interest in Hindu and Indian thought.

In 1927, Campbell received a fellowship provided by Columbia University to study in Europe. Campbell studied Old French, Provençal and Sanskrit at the University of Paris in France and the University of Munich in Germany.

He quickly learned to read and speak French and German, mastering them after only a few months of rigorous study. He remained fluent in these languages for the remainder of his life.

While in Europe, he was highly influenced by the period of the Lost Generation, a time of enormous intellectual and artistic innovation. Campbell often commented of this influence and that of James Joyce in particular.

It was in this climate that Campbell was also introduced to the work of Thomas Mann, who was to prove equally influential upon his life and ideas.

Also while in Europe, Campbell was introduced to modern art, becoming particularly enthusiastic about the work of Paul Klee and Pablo Picasso.

A new world of exciting ideas opened up to Campbell while studying in Europe as he became familiar with the works and writings of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.

On his return to Columbia in 1929, Campbell expressed his desire to pursue the study of Sanskrit and Modern Art in addition to Medieval literature. Lacking faculty approval, Campbell withdrew from graduate studies.

With the arrival of the Great Depression a few weeks later, Campbell spent the next five years (1929–34) living in a rented shack on some land in Woodstock, New York.

There, he contemplated the next course of his life while engaged in intensive and rigorous independent study.

He later said that he "would divide the day into four four-hour periods, of which I would be reading in three of the four hour periods, and free one of them... I would get nine hours of sheer reading done a day. And this went on for five years straight."

Campbell traveled to California for a year (1931–32), continuing his independent studies and becoming close friends with the budding writer, John Steinbeck, and his wife, Carol.

On the Monterey Peninsula, Campbell, like Steinbeck, fell under the spell of marine biologist, Ed Ricketts (the model for "Doc" in Steinbeck's novel, Cannery Row, as well as central characters in several other novels).

Campbell lived for a while next door to Ricketts, participated in professional and social activities at his neighbor's, and accompanied him, along with Xenia and Sasha Kashevaroff, on a 1932 journey to Juneau, Alaska.

Campbell's independent studies led to his greater exploration of the ideas of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, a contemporary and estranged colleague of Sigmund Freud.

Campbell edited the first papers from Jung's annual Eranos conferences and helped Mary Mellon found the Bollingen Foundation's Bollingen Series of books on psychology, anthropology and myth.

Many of Campbell's books would be published in this series.

In 1934, Campbell accepted a position as professor at Sarah Lawrence College (through the efforts of his former Columbia advisor, W.W. Laurence).

In 1938, Campbell married one of his former students, dancer-choreographer Jean Erdman. Erdman and Campbell did not have any children.

For most of their forty-nine years of marriage, they shared a two-room apartment in Greenwich Village in New York City. In the 1980s, they also purchased an apartment in Honolulu and divided their time between the two cities.

In 1972, Campbell retired from Sarah Lawrence College, after having taught there for 38 years.

Joseph Campbell died at his home in Honolulu, Hawaii, from complications of esophageal cancer.

Before his death, he had completed filming the series of interviews with Bill Moyers that aired the following spring as The Power of Myth.

Here, Campbell discusses what it is like becoming an adult

Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic on this day 105 years ago

On this day in 1916 — 105 years ago — a nurse opened a small storefront office in Brownsville, Brooklyn. She and her assistants handed out fliers in English, Yiddish and Italian reading, “Mothers, do not kill, do not take life, but prevent.”

The nurse was Margaret Sanger. The office, at 46 Amboy Street, was the nation’s first birth-control clinic. It served more than a hundred women on opening day.

In those days, spreading contraceptive information was a crime. Ten days later, the police raided the office, confiscated condoms and pessaries, and arrested Ms. Sanger.

She eventually served 30 days in jail, but her case paved the way for rulings that loosened restrictions on contraception.

Thanks New York Times!

On this day in 1827 — 195 years ago — a group of masked and costumed students danced through the streets of New Orleans marking the beginning of the city's famous Mardi Gras celebrations

On this day in 1827 — 195 years ago — a group of masked and costumed students danced through the streets of New Orleans marking the beginning of the city's famous Mardi Gras celebrations.

The celebration of Carnival — or the weeks between Twelfth Night on January 6 and Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Christian period of Lent — spread from Rome across Europe and later to the Americas.

Nowhere in the United States is Carnival celebrated as grandly as in New Orleans, famous for its over-the-top parades and parties for Mardi Gras (or Fat Tuesday), the last day of the Carnival season. (Except 2021, due to Covid)

Though early French settlers brought the tradition of Mardi Gras to Louisiana at the end of the 17th century, Spanish governors of the province later banned the celebrations.

After Louisiana became part of the United States in 1803, New Orleanians managed to convince the city council to lift the ban on wearing masks and partying in the streets.

The city's new Mardi Gras tradition began in 1827, when the group of students, inspired by their experiences studying in Paris, donned masks and jester costumes and staged their own Fat Tuesday festivities.

The parties grew more and more popular, and in 1833 a rich plantation owner named Bernard Xavier de Marigny de Mandeville raised money to fund an official Mardi Gras celebration.

After rowdy revelers began to get violent during the 1850s, a secret society called the Mistick Krewe of Comus staged the first large-scale, well-organized Mardi Gras parade in 1857.

Over time, hundreds of krewes formed, building elaborate and colorful floats for parades held over the two weeks leading up to Fat Tuesday.

Riders on the floats are usually local citizens who toss "throws" at passersby, including metal coins, stuffed toys or those now-infamous strands of beads.

Though many tourists mistakenly believe Bourbon Street and the historic French Quarter are the heart of Mardi Gras festivities, none of the major parades have been allowed to enter the area since 1979 because of its narrow streets.

In February, 2006, New Orleans held its Mardi Gras celebrations despite the fact that Hurricane Katrina had devastated much of the city with massive flooding the previous August.

Attendance was at only 60-70 percent of the 300,000 — 400,000 visitors who usually attend Mardi Gras, but the celebration marked an important step in the recovery of the city, which counts on hospitality and tourism as its single largest industry. 

Thanks History.com

Malcolm X, African American nationalist and religious leader, was assassinated 56 years ago today in New York City

Malcolm X, an African American nationalist and religious leader, was assassinated 56 years ago today in New York City.

He was killed by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom on Broadway and 165th Street in Washington Heights.

Born as Malcolm Little in 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, Little was the son of James Earl Little, a Baptist preacher who advocated the black nationalist ideals of Marcus Garvey. Threats from the Ku Klux Klan forced the family to move to Lansing, Michigan, where his father continued to preach his controversial sermons despite continuing threats.

In 1931, Malcolm Little’s father was brutally murdered by the white supremacist Black Legion, and Michigan authorities refused to prosecute those responsible. In 1937, the young man was taken from his family by welfare caseworkers. By the time he reached high school age, he had dropped out of school and moved to Boston, where he became increasingly involved in criminal activities.

In 1946, at the age of 21, he was sent to prison on a burglary conviction. It was there he encountered the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam, whose members are popularly known as Black Muslims. The Nation of Islam advocated black nationalism and racial separatism and condemned Americans of European descent as immoral "devils."

Muhammad's teachings had a strong effect on young Malcolm, who entered into an intense program of self-education and took the last name "X" to symbolize his stolen African identity. After six years, Malcolm X was released from prison and became a loyal and effective minister of the Nation of Islam in Harlem.

In contrast with civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X advocated self-defense and the liberation of African Americans "by any means necessary." A fiery orator, he was admired by the African American community in New York and around the country.

In the early 1960s, he began to develop a more outspoken philosophy than that of Elijah Muhammad, whom he felt did not sufficiently support the civil rights movement.

In late 1963, Malcolm X’s suggestion that President John F. Kennedy's assassination was a matter of the "chickens coming home to roost" provided Elijah Muhammad, who believed that Malcolm had become too powerful, with a convenient opportunity to suspend him from the Nation of Islam.

A few months later, Malcolm formally left the organization and made a Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, where he was profoundly affected by the lack of racial discord among orthodox Muslims.

He returned to America as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz and in June, 1964 founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity, which advocated black identity and held that racism, not the white race, was the greatest foe of the African American.

Malcolm's new movement steadily gained followers, and his more moderate philosophy became increasingly influential in the civil rights movement, especially among the leaders of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.

On February 21, 1965, one week after his home was firebombed, Malcolm X was shot to death by Nation of Islam members while speaking at a rally of his organization in New York City.

Thanks History.com and the New York Times