Oral history interview with Bradford Lyttle, 2000

Biographical Note

Bradford Lyttle is an American peace activist. Lyttle was born 1927 in Chicago, Illinois to a politically active family and attended Hyde Park High School and Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. He studied American Literature and Political Science in postgraduate programs at the University of Chicago. Lyttle joined the Committee for Non-Violent Action (CNVA) in the 1950s. Through the CNVA, Lyttle led several peace walks: the San Francisco-to-Moscow Walk from 1960-1961; from Nashville, Tennessee to Washington, D.C. in 1962; and the Quebec-to-Guantanamo Walk of 1963. In 1974, Lyttle moved to New York City. In 1983, Lyttle founded the United States Pacifist Party, with which he ran for president in 1984 and 1996. By the 2020s, he again lived in Chicago

Scope and Contents

Lyttle begins this interview by discussing his father, a Unitarian minister from Cleveland, Ohio and his mother, an activist from Brooklyn, New York. Lyttle cites stories of his mother's experience with Frederick Douglass, the Underground Railroad, and the radical humanitarian movement as early influences. Lyttle goes on to describe his childhood and adolescence in Hyde Park, Chicago. Lyttle explains his engagement with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which began in high school and increased throughout his undergraduate studies at Earlham College, Indiana. Lyttle discusses the nature of protests in Indiana, the Ku Klux Klan, and the influence of his roommate, conscientious objector James Otsuka. In the next portion of the interview, Lyttle delves into his decision to participate in anti-war activism of the late 1950s and early 1960s. He describes being held in the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners as a conscientious objector to the Korean War, and discusses his experience traveling abroad after being released. He discusses his work for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) as well as his participation in anti-nuclear demonstrations and the San Francisco-to-Moscow Walk for Peace. The remainder of this interview pertains to Lyttle's postgraduate pursuits and later life. Lyttle describes the publication of the Speak Truth to Power pamphlet and his experiences in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Lastly, Lyttle describes the policing and gentrification of Chicago as it relates to the University of Chicago, and his founding the United States Pacifist Party

Subjects

• American Friends Service Committee.
• Committee for Nonviolent Action.
• Congress of Racial Equality.
• Draft resisters.
• Imprisonment--United States.
• Interviews.
• Lyttle, Bradford--Interviews.
• Michaels, Sheila, 1939-2017, interviewer.
• Oral histories.
• Pacifism.
• Peace movements--United States--History--20th century.