Allard Kenneth Lowenstein (January 16, 1929 – March 14, 1980) was a Democratic politician, a one-term congressman representing the 5th District in Nassau County, New York from 1969 until 1971. His work on civil rights and the antiwar movement has been cited as an inspiration by public figures including U.S. Congress members John Kerry, Bill Bradley, Gary Hart, Donald W. Riegle, Jr. and Barney Frank, California gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides, columnist William F. Buckley, Jr., actor Warren Beatty, White House Counsel Gregory Craig, former New York City Public Advocate Mark Green and musician-songwriters Peter Yarrow and Harry Chapin. Lowenstein was a graduate of Horace Mann School in New York City[8] and of the University of North Carolina.[2] As an undergraduate, he was president of the National Student Association and the Dialectic Society.[2] Lowenstein received a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1954.[2] After completing his law degree Lowenstein became a college professor and administrator, holding posts at Stanford University, North Carolina State University, and City College of New York.[9] In 1949 Lowenstein worked as a special assistant on the staff of Senator Frank Porter Graham[10] and he was a foreign policy assistant on Senator Hubert H. Humphrey's staff in 1959.[11] In the 1960s Lowenstein spent time in Mississippi as part of the Freedom Summer and an interview of Lowenstein was featured in episode 5 of civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize.[12] In 1959, Lowenstein made a clandestine tour of South-West Africa, now Namibia. While he was there, he collected testimony against the South African controlled government (South-West Africa was a United Nations Trust Territory). After his return, he spent a year promoting his findings to various student organizations, then wrote a book, A Brutal Mandate, with an introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt, with whom he had worked in 1957 at the American Association for the United Nations. In 1960 Lowenstein was a Delegate to the Democratic National Convention.[9] Along with Curtis Gans in 1967, and later that fall joined by Wisconsin's Midge Miller, Lowenstein started the "Dump Johnson" movement, approaching Senators Robert F. Kennedy and, at Kennedy's suggestion, George McGovern about challenging President Johnson in the 1968 Democratic primaries. When Kennedy and McGovern both declined, Lowenstein, a Delegate to the Democratic National Convention, recruited and worked for Eugene McCarthy, whose candidacy he remained loyal to even after Kennedy's late entry into the race (before Johnson bowed out). Johnson's withdrawal from the presidential nomination process has been attributed to the impact of the "Dump Johnson" movement, culminating in the historical precedent of McCarthy's strong showing against Johnson in the New Hampshire Primary. Lowenstein was elected to Congress in Long Island, New York in 1968, but was defeated in a modified district in 1970 by New York State Senator Norman F. Lent by 9,300 votes, effectively gerrymandered out of office by the Republican-controlled State legislature, which determined the district's boundaries. Long Island's generally liberal Five Towns region had been removed from the district, and the far more conservative Massapequa added. Lowenstein captured 46% of the vote in the new district. The 1970 election was viewed nationwide as a referendum on President Richard Nixon's conduct of the Vietnam War.[3] In 1971, Lowenstein became head of the Americans for Democratic Action and spearheaded the "Dump Nixon" movement, earning himself the number 7 spot on Nixon's Enemies List. In 1972, Lowenstein ran unsuccessfully for Congress in Brooklyn against Congressman John J. Rooney, a conservative Democrat supported by the party "machine", in the Democratic Primary. After Rooney's victory was challenged and the election recalled due to allegations of fraud, Rooney narrowly won the rescheduled primary, but Lowenstein continued in the race on the Liberal Party line, finishing with 28% of the vote. After an abortive 1974 U.S. Senate bid, Lowenstein unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Republican Congressman John Wydler in a largely Republican district in Long Island in 1974 and 1976, receiving crucial support and endorsements from some local conservative Republicans as well as conservative William F. Buckley, Jr. His 52% to 48% defeat in 1974 was the strongest showing of any Democrat in that Congressional district to date, the latter largely attributed to Nixon's recent resignation, the Watergate scandal and Lowenstein's national reputation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allard_K._Lowenstein

• published: 05 Jan 2015
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