May 16, 1912 was a monumental day for America. Samuel and Anna Terkel of the Bronx had a baby boy. Louis arrived about a month after the Titanic sank. He died today. His was a life epic in scope, passion, activism, publishing, broadcasting and, eternally, advocacy for the "non-celebrated," the working people who have built America and made it go. He learned their value from his tailor father and seamstress mother who raised their four boys by working hard.
Studs Terkel was a working man. He earned a law degree from the University of Chicago (home to the family from 1922), but he never practiced law. He took up government work in Washington, briefly, before joining the WPA. Known to FDR's opponents as "We Pittle Around," the Works Progress Administration had a Writers' Project, with a radio branch. He acted on the radio (becoming Studs when he performed in a program with another actor named Louis, and was reading novels about Studs Lonigan at the time), read the news, and then took up his own show after the obligatory military stint. Studs couldn't be on the radio if he were starting out today. He didn't fit into a format. Hell, he didn't fit into any format. He played what he liked, and that meant opera next to blues next to jazz and traditional American folk music. The radio show generated enough interest that a television program was next. He talked to people, but he listened more, and that set the course for the work that made him famous world-wide. For the rest of his life he published oral histories, regular everyday people telling their stories to someone who wanted to hear them. And Studs really, really wanted to hear them.
He wanted to hear about Chicago, World War II, work, the Great Depression, race relations in America, death and hope. Somewhere in the midst of all that, he finally took a turn for himself, publishing the wondrous memoir, Talking to Myself. Studs' books have been some of my best friends throughout my life. Along with my grandparents and several of Dad's parishoners across the years, Studs' books taught me the value of older people and what they know. They taught me the wonder of listening. They taught me an awful lot of what matters in life. As did Studs, himself. I definitely wouldn't have sought my appointment to minister among the residents of our retirement homes-those known today as The Greatest Generation, although Studs wrote about them long before Brokaw, in The Good War. I'm not sure I would have even considered ordained ministry without Studs Terkel.
Studs didn't just write about working people. He fought for them. Enough that he was blacklisted by the McCarthyites in the 1950's. Studs was an unrepentant FDR liberal. He taught me about that, too. To push for what he believed in, he worked as a community organizer. Hmm, seems I've heard that term lately.
Studs was a fighter to the end. He had bypass surgery at 93 because he had more to do! In 2006 he led a lawsuit against AT&T to make them stop spying on their customers for Dubyer. He knew the evil that government can do through unwarranted intrusion into citizens' lives. He had suffered the effects himself.
Studs Terkel was a great man. He had a clear vision of, and commitment to, what America is supposed to be, and he would settle for nothing else. He inspired generations of Americans to follow in his footsteps in one way or another. He made a difference in his world, always for the good.
We are a poorer nation for having lost this physically small giant. No one can ever fill Studs' shoes in advocating for the average American woman or man. But we have been so enriched by his presence, and we will continue to be instructed by his books, the recordings of his interviews, and by his uniquely American spirit.
I know that you were a professed agnostic, Studs, but God bless you!
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