Excerpt: Harvard Magazine

Michael Ansara ’68 cut his teeth in the civil rights movement and was a leader in the Harvard chapter of Students for a Democratic Society as well as a New England SDS organizer. As an alumnus, he returned to campus during the spring 1969 upheavals (the University Hall occupation, the strikers’ removal by the state police, and the ensuing chaos) as chair of the strike committee. He still burns for the causes of his youth—all the more so given his take on the United States today—but has put matters in perspective in The Hard Work of Hope: A Memoir (Cornell, $23.95 paper). While encouraging today’s activists and organizers, Ansara leavens his tale with lessons learned, summarized in the epilogue, “From the Vantage of Fifty Years,” excerpted here.