Monthly Archives: August 2011

The house occupies a special place in my heart — like its own timeless world it remains the same every year, as comfortingly consistent as the presence of the two people who have lived there for five decades.  Perhaps it is because I have known my grandparents for my whole life that until recently, I had rarely thought about their rich backgrounds as political activists.  I discovered that my grandparents, who participated in many of the key social and political movements of the 20th and 21st centuries, are the very definition of living history.

Emanuel Margolis and Estelle Thompson (“Papa” and “Buba” respectively) were both born in New York City in 1926.  Papa, whose father and stepfather were both rabbis, came from a conservative Jewish family.  He was highly academic, and attended University of North Carolina, Harvard graduate school and Yale Law School.

When he was only 18 years old, Papa fought in Germany during World War II. He was wounded in the knee at the Battle of the Bulge.  He returned to college after the war thanks the G.I. Bill, and it was at UNC that he began his career as a political activist.

Papa’s experiences in Germany changed his perspective about the world and catalyzed his transformation into a political activist upon his return to the United States. Because of his religious Jewish background, he had never thought about becoming an activist; he had been assured God would make the world better.

“World War II dispelled myths about my life,” he says. “Previously, there had been no reason for me to be involved in political activity because I believed in the power of God to solve the problems of the world.” His view of life was shattered by the reality of war.

He remembers seeing a Reader’s Digest article that said “there are no atheists in foxholes,” and calling it nonsense.  The war had “changed [him] from a religious believer to an atheist.”

With the dissolution of his belief in God came a “great yearning for activism and political activity.” “I now believed,” Papa says, “that the world needed changing, and we could change the world.”

Returning to UNC after the war, Papa found a much greater social awareness at the school.  He began writing for the school newspaper about current issues, and joined several activist organizations on campus.  At one point, Papa and other veterans used the organizational skills they developed in the military to protect a group of desegregationist bus riders from a mob armed with baseball bats and 2-by-4s.

Becoming an attorney after college in many ways inhibited his activism, since the profession demands exclusive and objective devotion to the law. However, Papa notes, “a lawyer can play a very important part in helping ensure the protection of rights.”

Throughout his life, Manny Margolis' opinions were sought after, and respected.

He continued fighting for his political beliefs, specifically human rights.  He repeatedly argued in support of Constitutional principles, in particular the First Amendment.

He even defended the Ku Klux Klan’s right to march publicly, contending that it was expression of free speech. After the U.S. became involved in the Vietnam War, Papa helped young people who had been arrested while protesting the war argue their cases in court, again invoking the First Amendment.

From his marriage to Buba in 1959 until the present day, Papa has persisted in his political activism.  He is a regular columnist for the Connecticut Law Tribune, often writing about political or human rights issues. He has been a dedicated participant in anti-war protests, from Vietnam until Iraq and Afghanistan, with his wife and family.

He believes that the reason so many people support war is because they do not understand it. Having fought in a war himself, Papa firmly believes that “war is a monstrosity” that wreaks emotional damage on all involved, including those on the home front. About the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Papa asserts that “even the GI’s do not know their mission…they haven’t the foggiest idea about what they’re trying to accomplish…We’re spending trillions on wars that have no foreseeable ends.”  Though he is 84 years old, Papa’s continued activism supports the principle that humans can indeed “change the world.”

Papa and Buba fervently believe America and the world are fundamentally good.  We just need to fight to keep them that way.