—2— President’s Message Radicals in Portland . . . continued from page 1 Much of an institution’s history is held by the individual faculty and staff that compose that community. During discussions among the members of the RAPS Board of Directors, we’ve determined that one valuable method to preserve history is to seek information about sources of our history. Hence, we seek biographies—your bio—of all RAPS members. What were the noteworthy events and your contributions to Portland State during your professional career? “Lest we forget; lest you/we be forgotten.”Please consider assembling your piece of PSU history and sending it to us in the RAPS office. I assure you that will be a significant contribution to the archival files of the University. Recently we heard that PSU is one of three finalists for the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Award for Community-Campus Partnerships, which recognizes best practices in existing partnerships. This is the first award at the national level in the United States. The RAPS Sheet will take a summer sabbatical and return in September, but do note our summer picnic in August. Next year I look forward to RAPS’ leadership under Marge Terdal, your incoming president, and the monthly sessions from Larry Sawyer, your program chair and president-elect. And Portland State has new leadership with incoming President Wim Wiewel—see the press release and press conference video at www.pdx.edu. Also revisit the RAPS Web site, www.raps.pdx.edu, where you will find fresh photo galleries of this year’s programs. I extend my appreciation to all of you, members and board, who have assisted me, and thus enabled me to serve RAPS this past year. Thanks! —BobTufts unions were warned that if they didn’t eliminate their Communist leaders, they would be expelled from the CIO. The next year, they were. “It’s my personal opinion that that was the single most powerful act of the McCarthy period,” said Munk. A few years later, in 1954, the House Un-American Activities Committee rolled into town to sniff out Reds. It found Reed College particularly rich ground. “At the time, Reed developed the principle that nobody could teach anything at Reed College who didn’t say publicly that they weren’t Communist,” Munk explained. One professor, Stanley Moore, stood on principle and “said it was none of your damn business and got fired.” Another, Lloyd Reynolds, was suspended. The faculty voted overwhelmingly to demand Reynolds be reinstated. Among the few who did not was Munk’s father, Frank, who later taught for many years at Portland State. About 200 sites are listed and detailed inThe Portland Red Guide, which includes maps and photographs. Among them is the old Communist Party headquarters at the appropriately named Redman Hall at SE 10th and Hawthorne. The building still stands. And in 1908, not far from PGE Park, Eugene Debs addressed 10,000 Portlanders who were looking for a workers’ paradise. “My interest in rehabilitating the Left really has to do with how we want to spend the time that is given us on earth,” said Munk. “The dominant value in our society is to get ahead, accumulate wealth, and pass it on to our children—to have status in our society, to get this through competition with other people. “I hope that the people I tried to rehabilitate in this book had a different motivation. They were less interested in improving their individual place in society as they were in changing that society for the benefit of everyone. I think that’s a major dividing line in the motivation of Americans, and I think many of them are expressing questions about those values today.” Munk is a graduate of Reed and holds a master’s from the University of Oregon and a Ph.D. from New York University. He taught political science at SUNYStony Brook, Roosevelt University, and Rutgers.
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