New Left organizer and critic Todd Gitlin died Saturday at the age of 79. Gitlin’s rise to national prominence began with his student activism in the 1960s when he served as the president of Students for a Democratic Society, which pioneered protests against the Vietnam War. He worked as an academic throughout his life, authoring nearly 20 books and serving as the chair of Columbia University’s communications doctoral program. As recently as 2021, Gitlin organized intellectuals to oppose what he considered to be Republican-led threats to democratic elections. As reported by The New York Times, Gitlin died at a hospital in Pittsfield, New York, after suffering cardiac arrest in December.
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