Our committee of reunion planners is steadily putting together a plan for next year’s reunion for 1960’s–1970’s progressive activists from the Stanford/Mid-Peninsula area. While one of the central events that connects us remains the Spring, 1969 April Third Movement (A3M), we want to be sure that people who were at Stanford before or after A3M, or who were primarily active off campus, feel welcome.

We’ll gradually fill in the details, but we are circulating this update for people who need/wish to plan ahead. This message contains information about the Reunion venues, program, theme, and food. We’ll soon send out information about lodging.

Friday night, May 16, 2014 we will meet at the Tresidder Union Oak Lounge.

All day and evening Saturday, May 17, we will be at the First Presbyterian Church, 1140 Cowper, Palo Alto.

Sunday morning, May 18 and early that afternoon we will gather again at Tresidder Union in the Cypress lounge. We hope to conduct a walking tour of the campus (daytime rules).

We expect to organize fewer panel discussions than in 2009. Instead, we’ll plan open discussions and break-outs (affinity groups). We are building the event around three keynote presentations, each of which will be followed by open discussion:

“Accountability for War Crimes: From Viet Nam to Latin America” (fsi.stanford.edu/mediaguide/Terry_L_Karl/)

“Truth-Telling: Whistleblowers in the Vietnam and Modern Eras” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg)

“The Cultural Memory of the Vietnam War in the Epoch of the Forever War” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Bruce_Franklin)

While folks are welcome to attend just to reminisce and see old friends, we propose a theme to underlie our discussions:

“Lessons from the 1960s: What can be done at this juncture in history to build a multi-issue, multi-ideology progressive Movement in the U.S.?”

We are 40 to 50 years older than we were in the 1960s and early 1970s, but many of us have the time, money, and/or personal security, as well as the knowledge and experience, to continue to play an active role in progressive politics. There are many excellent organizations and media out there, but none has the momentum that we remember from our days at Stanford and environs. What can be done to re-build the Movement? What is our role?

We plan to serve a light breakfast, lunch, snacks, drinks, dinner, and dessert on Saturday at the First Presbyterian Church. To cover this as well as room rentals and other costs, we estimate that we will charge a registration fee of $150 per person. We will also be seeking donations to cover “scholarships” for current Stanford students.

On Friday night and Sunday, we expect attendees to buy their own food at Tresidder or elsewhere.

More Details To Come …