Tom Hayden has been a force in American politics since the 1960s anti-war civil rights movements. As a college student he helped to found the organization Students for a Democratic Society and wrote the group’s famous Port Huron Statement. In 1968 he was arrested with the Chicago Seven. In 1982, Hayden was elected to the California State Legislature, where he served for ten years in the Assembly before being elected to the State Senate in 1992, where he served eight years. He was honored as “legislator of the year” by the American Lung Association for his battles against the tobacco industry, by the California League Conservation Voters for his environmental leadership, by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for his civil rights achievements, and by the UC and Cal State student associations for his commitment to affordable higher education.

Hayden is a writer, a teacher, and a leading voice for ending the war in Iraq, erasing sweatshops, saving the environment, and reforming politics through greater citizen participation. He is currently the national director of No More Sweatshops!, a group encompassing labor, church, campus and community coalitions. He is also a Senior Fellow with the Oakland Institute and a professor at Occidental College. Hayden is the author of over a dozen books including Street Wars (2004), Rebels: A Personal History of the Sixties (2002), The Zapatista Reader (2001), and Irish on the Inside (2001). He frequently writes for a range of publications including The Nation, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, among others.