New Orleans       Living in the USA, I’m so sick of reading about Trump, Cornell, Iran, and more that stumbling on a story with a happy ending seems like a gift in itself.  Surprisingly there was one in the New York Times, of all places.

It starts in sadness, of course.  A New York University sociology professor named David F. Greenberg passed away in 2024.  He had almost textbook radical career beginning with work in the civil rights movement in South Carolina, anti-war protests over Vietnam, and from what I could make out, membership or activist perhaps in the late 60s and early 70s in something called the New American Movement or NAM.

For me that rang a bell back to my earliest days as an organizer in Springfield, Massachusetts with the Massachusetts affiliate of the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO).  I was a green organizer at 20 years old building the local chapters from scratch, initially as a summer job in 1969 and eventually as the start of my lifetime’s work.  There was an active NAM chapter in Springfield and western Massachusetts.  They were kind of a pain in my neck.  I met with them looking for any friends or allies, and to say they weren’t enthusiastic about welfare rights was an understatement.  Most interactions and meeting with them were the kind of ideological arguments more common to college dorms than organizing.  They were good-hearted people and friendly enough, but isolated, sectarian, critical, and not helpful when I was starting out, but I don’t blame them.  I was just a kid, over my head, trying to make something happen out of whole cloth.

Reading the story, I could image Greenberg emerging from that kind of trial by fire, but that’s not the real story here.  He lived parsimoniously.  At his death he had several retirement accounts courtesy of NYU and his savings.  Several were clearly designated for what remained of his family, largely nieces and nephews.  They shared those accounts worth more than a million dollars.  There was also a big one, now worth $6.6 million where he had named his parents as the primary beneficiary, but in 1975 named NAM as the secondary beneficiary, if his parents were no longer alive at his own passing, saying that the “fund should go to NAM ‘or any successor thereof.’”

This is where the rubber hits the road.  NAM was no more.  In 1982, in a grand ceremony, NAM had merged with the Democratic Socialist of America (DSA).  The family contested, claiming that NAM no longer existed.  DSA lawyered up.  If they were successful, this would be the largest donation ever to the now 120,000-member organization, currently much in the news.

Reading the whole article, I kept thinking, why are they not able to make a deal.  I was ready to abandon the piece, but then in the final three paragraphs of this forever long piece carrying the headlined: “Would a Fortune of Millions He Quietly Grew Go to His Relatives, or the D.S.A?”, we now had the grand reveal.  Only days ago, it turns out, the judge in the case ruled for DSA, saying it was “emphatically’ clear that DSA was NAM’s successor.  The parties in fact did reach a settlement.  DSA dropped its claim for compensation for its legal fees.  The family agreed that the DSA should get the $6.6 million.  The deal is done except for the judge’s signature.

The Times played me, presenting this all as if a great mystery, when it was over and done, but I’ll settle my grievance there by thanking all involved for a tale with a happy ending.  I hope there’s a future piece about what great things DSA might be able to achieve with this legacy funding.