Lenni Brenner

Lenni Brenner (born 1937) is an American Trotskyist writer. In the 1960s, Brenner was a prominent civil rights activist and a prominent opponent of the Vietnam War.

Early life

Brenner was born into an Orthodox Jewish family. He developed an interest in history from reading Hendrik Willem van Loon's The Story of Mankind which his brother had received as a bar mitzvah present. He became an atheist at age 10 or 12 and a Marxist at age 15. Brenner's involvement with the Civil Rights Movement began when he met James Farmer of the Congress of Racial Equality, later the organizer of the Freedom Rides of the early 1960s. He also worked with Bayard Rustin, later the organizer of Martin Luther King's 1963 "I Have a Dream" march on Washington.

Political activity

Brenner was arrested three times during civil rights sit-ins in the San Francisco Bay Area. He spent 39 months in jail when a court revoked his probation for marijuana possession, because of his activities during the Berkeley Free Speech Movement at the University of California in 1964.

He was an anti-war activist from the first days of the Vietnam War, speaking frequently at rallies in the Bay Area. In 1963 he organized the Committee for Narcotic Reform in Berkeley. In 1968 he co-founded the National Association for Irish Justice, the American affiliate of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.

In the 1990s, he and Kwame Ture (aka Stokely Carmichael), the legendary "Black Power" leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, co-founded the Committee against Zionism and Racism. They also published The Anti-War Activist.

In 2003, Brenner spoke at the inaugural meeting of Jews Against Zionism with his colleagues Alice Coy, Haim Bresheeth and Roland Rance who presented Brenner's book, 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis.

Brenner spoke at an Israeli Apartheid Week event in 2011 at Berlin, Connecticut. According to the Anti-Defamation League, at an event called "One State Solution" at the Islamic Association of Greater Hartford, Brenner said that Jews were the largest donors to American political parties and that the Political system is as "crooked as a dog's hind leg". He also asserted that President Truman recognised Israel because of contributions from Jews.

Writing

His books have been widely translated, and have been reviewed in 11 languages, to mixed reviews. His articles have also appeared in a range of left wing and Middle East specialist journals, but have also gained attention on the far-right, such as the Institute for Historical Review. Brenner has opposed his work being used by those on the far-right, and those engaged in Holocaust denial.