Heroes and Traitors

Presented by Steve Golin

This paid Adult School class.

This talk is about American heroes and traitors, and the difficulty of knowing the difference.

In the struggle to make a better, more equal world, some Americans became Communists. They were hunted by the authorities, as un-American. Other Americans cooperated with the authorities against their former friends. When Arthur Miller broke with Elia Kazan, when the American Civil Liberties Union expelled Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, when Jackie Robinson clashed with Paul Robeson, when Mary McCarthy denounced Lillian Hellman, who was the hero and who was the traitor? How can we tell?

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