Leslie Cagan Papers
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Abstract
Leslie Cagan was born in New York City in 1947. She graduated from New York University in 1968 with a degree in Art History. As an activist, organizer, and employee, Cagan has been involved in a range of progressive and left political activities in the United States, and in particular in New York City, Boston, Washington, DC and St. Louis from the late 1960s to the present. Both paid and unpaid, Cagan's work with movements for social and economic justice documents the formation of progressive political organizations and highlights coalition building activities and strategies. This collection offers insight into the logistical mobilization and funding of large rallies, marches, and demonstrations as well as the organization and planning of electoral campaigns and other organizing projects. It consists of meeting minutes and agendas, correspondence, organizational mailings, literature, and brochures, press releases and press clippings, flyers, posters, mailing lists, manuals, and memoranda. Prominently represented topics include: the antinuclear and peace movements, feminism, LGBTQ, relations between the United States and Cuba, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the struggles over the governance of the Pacifica Foundation and its affiliated radio stations, including New York City's WBAI.
Biographical Note
Leslie Cagan was born in New York City in 1947. She graduated from New York University in 1968 with a degree in Art History. Cagan grew up in an activist family and began her political involvement at NYU, participating in numerous campus organizations and campaigns, including the Ad Hoc Committee for a Democratic University, the Ad Hoc Committee to Oppose Tuition Increase, and the protest of Dow Chemical Company. During this time, she was also involved in the Student Mobilization Committee Against the War in Vietnam and offered support to the student strike at Columbia University. Cagan was a staff member of the Mobilization Committee Against the War in Vietnam.
In the 1970s, Cagan's participation in the feminist movement began. She worked with the St. Louis Women's Radio Show from 1971-1972 and throughout the 1970s produced shows with the Red Tape Media Collective for the Boston Feminist Radio Network. In Boston, she helped to found the Boston Area Socialist Feminist Organization and the Boston Women's Union. These organizations participated in regional activities in and around Boston, including the "Yes We Can" Fair and Demonstration and "Choices!" the Women's Expo. From 1974-1979, Cagan attended numerous national Marxist and socialist feminist conferences. In the late 1970s, Cagan grew increasingly involved in the pro-choice movement. She organized for the Abortion Action Coalition and the Abortion Task Force of the People's Alliance. Under the auspices of these organizations as well as the Reproductive Rights National Network, Cagan was a leader of the petition campaigns to defeat the Henry Hyde Amendment, which limited federal funding for abortion. In 1979, she coordinated the Abortion Rights Action Week in Boston and the International Day of Action on Abortion and Sterilization. Cagan also participated in International Women's Day events and the Cambridge Commission on the Status of Women.
During the mid 1970s, Cagan began participating in and organizing with the gay rights movement. In 1977 at the International Women's Year National Women's Conference in Houston, Cagan was part of a socialist-feminist delegation, whose aim was to push the feminist movement toward addressing the issues of lesbians and to make connections to other issues. Cagan helped to edit the lesbian chapter in Our Bodies, Ourselves, an influential book put out by the Boston Women's Health Book Collective. She took part in a campaign to defeat the Briggs Initiative, or California Proposition 6, which attempted to bar gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools. In addition, Cagan participated in the Boston area Gay Speakers Bureau, an organization that developed a speaker's program and educational campaign on gay and lesbian rights as well as the 1979 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights.
In addition to her involvement in the feminist and gay rights movements, Cagan did work against FBI surveillance and state repression. She was a leader of the Susan Saxe Defense Committee, which was established in 1975 to defend the rights of Susan Saxe, a prisoner convicted on armed robbery and manslaughter charges.
In the 1980s, while still involved with feminist and gay rights organizations, Cagan focused her attention on international peace, justice, and nuclear disarmament and began working with large, coalitions, movements and organizations. Cagan worked with the People's Alliance, an organization that grew out of the July 4, 1976 Bicentennial counter demonstrations. Following her involvement with the May 6th Coalition, which organized the 1980 March on Washington Against Nuclear Power, Cagan participated in the Coalition for a Non-Nuclear World and the Coalition for a People's Alternative. In 1980, these coalitions helped organize the People's Convention and march at the Democratic National Convention in New York City. From 1983-1986, Cagan was a staff member and program coordinator with the Mobilization for Survival, a broad coalition of more than 100 national and local organizations committed to nuclear disarmament. Cagan coordinated the largest demonstration up to that point in U.S. history, the 1982 March and Rally in Support of the United Nations Second Special Session on Disarmament in New York City. Following this, she helped organize the 1985 April Actions for Peace, Jobs, and Justice in Washington DC, the 1987 March in Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, the 1988 Housing Action Week in New York City, and the 1988 National Demonstration in support of the United Nations Third Special Session on Disarmament. Throughout the 1980s, Cagan was active with the National Committee for Independent Political Action, which was involved in a broad range of political activity.
For most of the 1990s, Cagan worked to change U.S. policy toward Cuba. She established and coordinated the Cuba Information Project and the U.S.+Cuba Medical Project, and was a co-founder of the National Network on Cuba. In 2002 Cagan helped to organize United for Peace and Justice, and she became its national coordinator. UFPJ grew to become the largest antiwar coalition in U.S. history with some 1,400 member groups; they organized the massive antiwar protests over several years.
Cagan organized and worked for several electoral campaigns on the local and state level as well as nationally. In 1986, she was field director for the Mel King Congressional Campaign in Boston. Cagan was also a member of Lesbians and Gays for Jackson, a New York City and national advisory committee of lesbians and gays who supported Jesse Jackson's bid for president in 1984 and 1988. In 1989, Cagan was the field director for the David Dinkins Mayoral campaign in New York City.
Cagan authored chapters in several books: They Should Have Served that Cup of Coffee – Seven Radicals Remember the Sixties edited by Dickie Cluster; Beyond Survival: Directions for the Disarmament Movement edited by Dave Dellinger and Michael Albert; Imagine Living in a Socialist USA edited by Frances Goldin, Debby Smith and Michael Steven Smith; Feminism and War: Confronting U.S. Imperialism edited by Robin Riley, Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Minnie Bruce Pratt; Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism edited by Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans; What We Do Now edited by Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians; This is What Lesbian Looks Like: Dyke Activists Take on the 21st Century edited by Kris Kleindienst; Collateral Damage: The New World Order at Home and Abroad edited by Cynthia Peters; and War Resisters League Organizer's Manual edited by Ed Hedemann, WRL, NYC. She is the co-author of Liberating Theory published by South End Press and regularly writes for Z Magazine.
Arrangement
Series I is arranged alphabetically; Series II is unprocessed.
The files are grouped into 2 series:
Missing Title
- I, Subject Files Accessioned 1986-1992 (11 linear ft.)
- II, Subject Files Accessioned 1993-2011 (42 linear ft.)
Scope and Content Note
Series I: Subject Files, Accessioned 1986-1992, documents a wide range of political activity. Cagan was involved in and an organizer of local and national organizations, coalition built mobilizations, demonstrations, marches and rallies, as well as state and national electoral campaigns. She also worked on progressive radio shows, was a paid organizer for the Mobilization for Survival, and participated in the National Committee for Independent Political Action. Through Cagan's various political interests, Series I highlights the coordination, planning, and administrative operations of the numerous organizations, coalition built mobilizations, and electoral campaigns with which she was involved.
While attending NYU in the late 1960s, Cagan participated in the Student Mobilization Committee Against the War in Vietnam and campus organizations working for a more democratic University. Series I has press clippings documenting demonstrations against the war in Vietnam as well as flyers and literature from her campus organizing. In the 1970s, with Cagan's burgeoning involvement in the feminist movement, the collection documents the formation of the Boston Area Socialist Feminist Organization and the Boston Women's Union. While holding weekly committee meetings, these feminist organizations developed principles of unity and political papers on organizational structure, program development, and socialist feminism. Series I also contains literature from feminist organizations across the nation, including the Twin Cities Women's Union and the Chicago Women's Liberation Union. Series I documents the formation of the Reproductive Rights National Network, a coalition of reproductive rights organizations, including material from several national organizing conferences as well as its petition campaign to defeat the Henry Hyde Amendment of 1976. In the late 1970s Cagan was involved in the movement for gay and lesbian rights, in which she helped coordinate and form a national Gay Speakers Bureau and the National Network for Gay and Lesbian Socialists, along with the Gay Socialist Organization of Boston. Included in Series I from these organizations are organizational packets, speaker's lists, pamphlets, literature, and flyers.
Through the formation of coalitions for specific mobilizations, Cagan organized several national demonstrations, rallies, and marches. In both New York City and Washington DC, she helped plan and organize some of largest demonstrations for nuclear disarmament and international peace and justice in U.S. history. Series I documents the formation of these coalitions and the demonstrations that followed, showing their administrative structure, outreach campaigns, financial, media, fundraising, and logistical committees, press coverage, as well as campaign produced flyers, posters, and literature.
Included in Series I is documentation about the foundation and political activities of the People's Alliance, which formed out of the July 4, 1976 Bicentennial counter demonstrations. Series I also contains organizational material pertaining to the May 6th Coalition, which mobilized for the March on Washington Against Nuclear Power in 1979, the Coalition for a Non-Nuclear World, the Coalition for a People's Alternative, which organized the People's Convention at the Democratic National Convention in New York City in 1980 and produced the "Declaration of Charlotte Street," a proclamation for political and economic justice.
Cagan was a lead organizer of the demonstrations in support of the United Nations Second Special Session on Disarmament as well as the United Nations Third Special Session on Disarmament, both held in New York City, in 1982 and 1988. From budgetary and financial documents to organizational mailings and outreach letters to flyers and posters, the material from these mobilizations is sizable. Pertaining to the logistical planning of the marches and rallies in support of the United Nations Special Sessions on Disarmament, Series I consists of march routes, correspondence with speakers and speaker's lists, press releases and press clippings, administrative meeting agendas and minutes, as well as post rally financial and legal material.
Additionally, Series I documents the 1985 April Actions for Peace, Jobs, and Justice and the 1987 Mobilization for Justice and Peace in Central America and South Africa both held in Washington DC. In 1984, Cagan organized a demonstration in New York City to stop U.S. involvement in Central America. Also in New York City, Cagan coordinated the Housing Action Week of 1988, a week of activities on housing and homelessness, which culminated in the largest housing mobilization in the City's history. Both of these mobilizations are represented in Series I with flyers, outreach and organizational material, and press coverage.
Throughout Cagan's political career founding and participating in grass roots organizations as well as planning for mass demonstrations and rallies, she was involved in both a paid and unpaid capacity with several other types of organizations as well. Throughout the 1970s, Cagan helped produce feminist radio shows through the Red Tape Media Collective for the Boston Feminist Radio Network and in 1971-1972 she worked for the St. Louis Women's Radio Show. Correspondence and financial documentation pertaining to the shows are included in Series I. From 1980-1986, Cagan worked as program coordinator with the Mobilization for Survival, a broad coalition of more than 100 national and local organizations committed to nuclear disarmament. From her work with the Mobilization for Survival, Series I includes documentation on the organization's non-profit 501(c)(3) status, proposals for action and direction from affiliated organizations, as well as material from the Religious Task Force and the International Task Force pertaining to the United Nations Second Special Session on Disarmament. Included from Cagan's involvement with the National Committee for Independent Political Action, a broad coalition headed by Ted Glick, is executive and steering committee meeting agendas and minutes, outreach mailings, position papers, and material regarding their relationship to the National Rainbow Coalition. In addition, Series I documents Cagan's work organizing a concert series with Holly Near and inti-illimani from 1983-1984 for Cultural Work, Inc. as well as her work with the Redwood Records Cultural and Educational Fund.
Series II, Subject Files Accessioned 1993-29-2011 (unprocessed, folder level inventory) includes files on U.S. relations with Cuba, the 1989 New York City Mayoral campaign of David N. Dinkins, the antinuclear and peace movements, the Arrab-Israeli conflict, and the struggles over the governance of the Pacifica Foundation and its affiliated radio stations, including New York City's WBAI.
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Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open for research with the exception of files pertaining to the Susan Saxe Defence Committee and trial in Series I (box 9, folders 17-24). Permission from donor is required to access these files.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright (and related rights to publicity and privacy) to materials in this collection created by Leslie Cagan was not transferred to New York University. Permission to use materials must be secured from the copyright holder.
Preferred Citation
Published citations should take the following form:
Identification of item, date; Leslie Cagan Papers; TAM 138; box number; folder number;
Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012, New York University Libraries.
Location of Materials
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated by Leslie Cagan in several batches between 1986 and 2011. The accession numbers associated with this gifts are 1985.004, 2009.036, 2011.014, and 2014.121.
Custodial History
Donated by Leslie Cagan in several batches between 1986 and 2011. Materials separated from the collection in 2009 were reincorporated into the collection in 2014 as Box 53.
About this Guide
Processing Information
Materials separated from the 2009 donation were discovered in the repository in 2014 and 2018 and added to the collection as Box 53.