Carl Oglesby - September 13, 2011

Obituary by Chris Till

Former Yellow Springs resident Carl Oglesby died September 13, 2011 at age 76. In the 1960s, Carl was a renowned activist against the Vietnam War. While living in Yellow Springs and working at Antioch College, Carl served as national president of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in 1965-1966. Though Carl was at least a decade older than many SDS members, he was respected as a powerful orator and quick thinker. In 1969, after leaving Yellow Springs, Carl was purged from SDS by the violent Weatherman faction, as it took over the group.

Carl was a renaissance man, working variously as a writer, musician, and playwright. Recording two albums for Vanguard Records in the late 1960s, one of Carl's songs, "Cherokee Queen," was beautifully covered by the fabulous former Yellow Springs band, Mad River, on their second album in 1969. Members of Mad River also helped Carl record his debut album.

Carl published several books, including books on the John Kennedy assassination and "Ravens in the Storm: A Personal History of the 1960s Antiwar Movement," a personal memoirs. In "Ravens in the Storm," he refers to 1960s Yellow Springs as both lovely and "navel-gazing." Regarding the state of the world, Carl once said, "It isn't the rebels who cause the troubles of the world, it's the troubles that cause the rebels."