As he lay in a hospice awaiting his next excursion as he would call it, Walt DeYoung has honored this writer with his presence for the past 15 years. Infirmed and using a walker, he still went about his street corner activism undaunted. The man has always been downright amazing!
To list his accomplishments as an activist would take too long and too much paper. Let me just say this: The man was out there marching for civil rights for our Afro-American brothers and sisters during the ‘Jim Crow’ early sixties in the ‘still Dixie ‘ Maryland Eastern shore. He was out there in New Jersey as a labor activist leading protests and strikes in the 70s, with a mob contract on his head. No kidding! Walt, early on in the Vietnam War protests, was out there raising hell. He even was a bodyguard for MLK’s widow at a Central Park anti war rally. He seemed to be everywhere! In the Minnesota area Walt stood with the American Indians in their protests of the environmental damages done by corporate malfeasance.
When this writer met Walt DeYoung after the Bush/Cheney Cabal invaded Iraq, he was always the first to show up at meetings and protests. Always! He feared no one from the power structure, whether it be local or national. He stood in front of a city council meeting in Port Orange and shared his knowledge while lobbying for city run community vegetable gardens. He knew his thing, because he created one right next door to his home in New Smyrna Beach. What a guy!
Imagine if we could get some of our millennial young folks to become active in regards to this empire. Walt DeYoung always spoke to his younger peers about his lifelong experiences with empire etc. He never tired of ‘ Speaking Truth to Power’ wherever he went. As a ‘topping’ to his ‘cake of life’ Walt would have ended it best with his famous Nuff Said!
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Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. He has been a free lance columnist since 2001, with over 400 of his work posted on sites like Global Research, Greanville Post, Off Guardian, Consortium News, Information Clearing House, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News, Dissident Voice, Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust, whereupon he writes a great deal on the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has a internet interview show, ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid’ with producer Chuck Gregory, and can be reached at [email protected].
