Lee Webb
Lee Dunham Webb is Governance cochair for the Abbot Academy Fund. Senior Fellow at the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine.
Lee Webb came from a working-class New England background and was educated at Andover School and Boston University. He spent his summers working as a laborer and was a peace activist at Boston University in 1962 when he was enlisted by Robb Burlage as a member of the Students for a Democratic Society. Webb quickly rose through the SDS ranks, and at the 1963 convention was elected National Secretary and National Council member. He had a role in organizing SDS's Economic Research and Action Project (ERAP), initiated in September 1963 and reorganized early in 1964 with Rennie Davis as project head. The immediate goal of ERAP was to form projects of students in several cities to work during the summer of 1964 toward the formation of grass roots political organizations. Although ERAP's success was hard-won and the projects quickly became isolated from other SDS activities, the organizers did manage to raise funds from the United Auto Workers and the Packinghouse Workers Union. With the Packinghouse Workers Union, the SDS set up the Chicago Jobs or Income Now (JOIN) program in 1964; Webb joined the staff shortly thereafter. Webb had moved to Chicago to work with the Urban Training Center religious group, as required alternate service under the terms of his Conscientious Objector draft status. He also continued to work for SDS in the Illinois-Wisconsin area during 1964.
Early in 1965 Webb left the now-faltering JOIN organization to work full-time as a campus organizer in preparation for the April 17, 1965, March on Washington in protest against the Vietnam War. Later that year he joined in the formation of the National Conference for New Politics (NCNP), led by Arthur Waskow; Webb served on the NCNP national board. Webb's involvement with SDS continued through this period, and he ran unsuccessfully for president in 1966. However, by this time he (and other early leaders from the period of the Port Huron Statement in 1962) had been all but swept aside as the "old guard" by younger members with a different political philosophy.
In 1967 Webb became executive director of the Vietnam Summer project, a liberal movement to make the middle class throughout the country aware of and united behind the anti-Vietnam war effort. Although Vietnam Summer was viewed with suspicion by the leadership of SDS, several older SDS members joined the project. Following Vietnam Summer, Webb took a position with the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. In 1968 he was a sponsor at the organization of the New University Conference, and that same year, worked as an organizer for the National Mobilization Committee prior to the riots at the Democratic National Convention in August.
Since the late 1960s, Webb's work has taken several directions. He has worked with The Guardian in Washington, and spent several years teaching at Goddard College in Vermont. Later he was associated with the Conference on Alternative State and Local Public Policies in Washington, D.C.[1]
In 1984 Lee moved to New York to work for Governor Mario Cuomo. He served first as Vice President and later Executive Vice President of the NY Urban Development Corporation. In 1996 Lee became Vice President of Partners Health Care in Boston managing their real estate, facilities engineering, capital construction, and capital budget planning. In 1998 he returned to New York to be Vice President at the New School University with similar responsibilities.
Lee has a B.A. from Boston University, an M. A. from Goddard College, and a Ph. D. in public administration and public policy from the Union Institute. He also attended specialized management programs at the Kennedy School at Harvard University.
One of Lee’s major volunteer commitments has been Phillips Academy. He was a member of the Alumni Council from 2012 to 2014 and from 1989 to 1991. He was a member of the Organizing Committee for his 50th Reunion (2009). He is also the Co-Class Agent.
In 2004 Lee moved to Union, Maine and now serves on a number of boards. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine in Orono. Lee received a Ph.D. in American History from the University of Vermont in May 2017.[2]
An Open Letter to the New New Left From the Old New Left
An Open Letter to the New New Left From the Old New Left.
Now it is time for all those who yearn for a more equal and just social order to face facts.
By Former leaders of the Students for a Democratic Society. April 16, 2020.
On April 13, 2020, Senator Bernie Sanders urged his supporters to vote for the presumptive Democratic nominee, former vice president Joe Biden. Writing as founders and veterans of the leading New Left organization of the 1960s, Students for a Democratic Society, we welcome Bernie’s wise choice—but we are gravely concerned that some of his supporters, including the leadership of Democratic Socialists of America, refuse to support Biden, whom they see as a representative of Wall Street capital. Some of us are DSA members, but do not believe their position is consistent with a long-range vision of democracy, justice, and human survival....
We salute Bernie Sanders and our friends and comrades in DSA and in the diverse movements for social justice and environmental sanity that enabled them to rise. We look forward to joining together to build on and defend our accomplishments. And now we plead with all: Get together, beat Trump, and fight for democracy—precious, fragile, worth keeping.
The signers of this letter were founders, officers, and activists in Students for a Democratic Society between 1960 and 1969.
Signers included Lee Webb.
Institute for Policy Studies
In 1993 Lee Webb was listed among "former fellows, project co-ordinators and staff" of the Institute for Policy Studies, Washington DC.[3]
Maine Initiatives
Maine Initiatives, is "a progressive community foundation, is a network of individuals supporting greater social, economic, and environmental justice in Maine through informed, intentional, and collective philanthropy".
Advisors include Karin Anderson, Michael Barndollar, Elena Brandt, Brownie Carson, Elaine Cinciva, Chuck Collins, Al Crichton, Deborah Curtis, Joel D. Davis, Maureen Drouin, Janet Henry, Michael Herz, R. Stephen Jenks, Meredith Jones, Lincoln Ladd, Jonathan Lee, Donald G. Myer, Janet O’Toole, Chellie Pingree, Hannah Pingree, Pamela Plumb, Andy Robinson, Neil Rolde, Sharon L. Rosen, Christopher Saint John, Scott Schnapp, Janet Schrock, Bill Vandenberg, Lee Webb, Anne Zill.[4]