David Brower, teacher, 1912-2000
tom turner / sfbg.com 8nov00
I'M WRITING THIS on the eve of the election, which etches some outlines around the words. Tomorrow we will anoint Al Gore or Dubya Bush our next president. Clarion calls emanate from many quarters: A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush.
Dave Brower's house up the hill sports a sign in the window urging a vote for Nader, as former Nader Raiders counsel the holding of noses and a vote for Al. It is a difficult, but maybe fitting end to the man who has spent much of his life fighting to force the environmental movement to hew faithfully to the righteous line inscribed for it by Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and far too few others.
Dave had a lifelong and mercurial affiliation with the environmental movement, most profoundly with the Sierra Club. He joined in 1933, was hired as its first executive director in 1952, was forced to resign in 1969, was elected to its board three times and resigned in protest more than once, most recently this past spring. Each defection was prompted by his sense that the club was becoming too close to the power structure, too willing to compromise. One of his recurrent themes was that it is not the place of the environmental movement to compromise; that's what we hire politicians for. We partisans, who would advocate the preservation of wilderness and a living ecosystem for all, must remain steadfast.
I worked with him for 30 years and counting. I won't stop. I began in 1968, at the club, and got fired for my loyalty, one of my proudest achievements. I was interviewed for a news broadcast on Channel 4 Monday afternoon, and I was most happy with one comment that didn't make it on the air:
But for Dave Brower, I wouldn't be where I am now, doing what I'm doing, and I know that there are thousands of people who could, and will, say the same thing. His formal resume may not include "teacher," but he was one of the very best. We miss him already.
Thanks, Dave, for everything.
Tom Turner is senior editor of the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund. Plans for a memorial for Brower are pending.
