Greg Calvert and Shaw's Road: Difference between pages

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'''Gregory Nevala Calvert''' ([[1937]] – [[August 12]] [[2005]]) was National Secretary of [[Students for a Democratic Society]] in 1966-67.

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[[Image:Botharseoighe.jpg|left|300px|thumb|The Shaw's Road Primary School - [[Bunscoil Phobal Feirste]].]]

{{lang|ga|'''Bóthar Seoighe'''}} (also {{lang|ga|''Gaeltacht Seoighe''}}; {{lang-en|Shaw's Road}} or ''Shaw's Gaeltacht'') is a small [[Gaeltacht]] ([[Irish language|Irish]]-speaking area) in [[Belfast]], [[County Antrim]], [[Northern Ireland]]. The Shaw's Road Gaeltacht was founded in the mid 1960s when a few families from [[Belfast]] built their houses in the area. More families joined the original settlers in the 1960s. In all, over 300 people live in the Shaw's Road Gaeltacht. In 1972 the Shaw's Road received official recognition as a Gaeltacht following a campaign. A [[committee]] was started in 1973. As a result, the Shaw's Road has grown into a community with a primary school (and have from the work of it's people openeda secondary school in 1991 on the Falls Road), the first primary Irish Language primary school in the north of Ireland, a community hall and other historical facilities. Shaw's Gaeltacht is popular for children and adults from Antrim learning Irish. Irish language courses are run for all in the [[Gaelic Athletic Association|GAA Club]]. Shaw's Gaeltahct has a strong culture of traditional music, dance and drama which continues to thrive today.

==Biography==

===Early years===

Gregory Calvert was born during the Great Depression, in a squatter's shack on the slopes of the [[Mount St. Helens]] Volcano . As a boy, he lived with his Finnish grandparents on a small farm--Finnish was his first language. He was an excellent student, and eventually won a much-need [[Weyerhaeuser]] scholarship to [[Oregon State University]]. After graduation with a degree in history, a Woodrow Wilson fellowship enabled him to begin work toward a graduate degree in European History at [[Cornell University]]. He spent a year in Paris, then returned to the US in the fall of 1963, where he was offered and he accepted a teaching position as an Instructor at [[Iowa State University]] in Ames, Iowa.

===SDS involvement===

In the Fall of 1965, with about a dozen others, Greg started a local chapter at [[Iowa State University]] of the budding [[Students for a Democratic Society]] (SDS). He left that post with Jane Addams, the National Secretary, in the Spring of 1966. Greg was himself elected National Secretary that summer at the 1966 convention at Clear Lake, Iowa. His election was part of the "prairie power" move of the organization away from the East Coast [[Jewish]] crowd who had largely controlled the organization up to then. He played an important part in how the [[March on the Pentagon]] in 1968 unfolded--he prevented a suicidal charge by the demonstrators on the soldiers guarding the entrance of the Pentagon by persuading them to sit down instead. He was a pacifist who believed in non-violent methods of confrontation, and left SDS when it split into the [[Progressive Labor Party]] and [[Weatherman (organization)|Weatherman]] factions later that year.

===Later years===

Greg had a lifelong interest in Buddhism, and set up a practice as a Buddhist psychotherapist in the late 1970's. He finished his doctoral studies at [[UC Santa Cruz]] in "History of Consciousness." Greg and a partner established an intensive Spanish language school, Casa Xalteva, in Granada, Nicaragua in 1995. He died of complications from diabetes and lung disease in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2005.

==Books by Gregory Calvert==

*''Democracy from the Heart: Spiritual Values, Decentralism, and Democratic Idealism in the Movement of the 1960s'' Comunitas Press (1991) ISBN 0962880000

* ''A Disrupted History: The New Left and the New Capitalism'' co-author Carol Neiman. Random House (1971) ISBN 039446267X

==References==

* [[Kirkpatrick Sale|Sale, Kirkpatrick]]. ''SDS: Ten Years Towards a Revolution'' New York: Vintage Books (1974) ISBN 0394719654. It is available online [http://sunrisedancer.com/radicalreader/library/sds/]

[[Category:1937 births|Calvert, Gregory]]

[[Category:2005 deaths|Calvert, Gregory]]

[[Category:American activists|Calvert, Gregory]]

[[Category:Finnish-Americans|Calvert, Gregory]]

[[Category: Former members of Students for a Democratic Society|Calvert, Gregory]]