Background on Thomas N. Gardner
An activist, journalist, and educator, Thomas N. Gardner has spent his life fighting for important social causes; from protesting the Vietnam War, to anti-racism, to labor activism, to nuclear disarmament, to civil rights, he has put his principles into practice through his tireless commitment to social change.
Born in New Orleans in 1946, Gardner began his involvement in social and political causes as a student at the University of Virginia (UVA) in 1964. He joined the burgeoning civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements and eventually dropped out of school to become a full time activist. Gardner successfully applied for conscientious objector status, and continued to work as an activist for several years before returning to school. During this time, he was the chairman of the Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC), an organization based in the south which opposed the Vietnam War, fought for civil rights for black Americans, and supported the rights of women and workers. He returned to UVA in 1969 and completed his bachelor’s degree in sociology in 1971.
Following UVA, Gardner worked as a staff member at the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) as an organizer. Concurrently, he joined the Southern Conference Education Fund (SCEF) and became a board member. SCEF was active in numerous causes in the south, dedicated in particular to civil rights and electoral reform. At that time, SCEF was led by Anne and Carl Braden, who were prominent civil rights activists. SCEF worked to dismantle racial discrimination in the south, and utilized educational journalism and collective action to document the suffering caused by discrimination. Gardner also worked with the Center for United Labor Action (CULA) around this time, an organization that focused on supporting labor unions and opposing unethical practices, particularly targeting the Virginia Electric and Power Company (VEPCO).
Beginning in the 1970s, Gardner began work on prison issues, working with a number of politically and unfairly convicted prisoners, and advocating for an end to the death penalty. Gardner, and the groups he worked with, challenged the institutional racism of a southern justice system that had existed since the days of Jim Crow. The most prominent of these cases was that of Johnny ‘Imani’ Harris, who was originally sentenced to five life terms for 4 small robberies and an alleged rape in 1970 and eventually given the death penalty under Alabama’s capital offenses law due to an inadequate defense by his court appointed lawyers. A separate SCUA collection, the ‘Committee to Defend Johnny Imani Harris Collection’, documents this work.
Concurrent to his work as an activist, Gardner has worked as a journalist and photographer, writing articles for a number of commercial publications as well as some independent work. While working for the Montgomery Advertiser, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, and others, he covered local, college, and political news. Gardner has also used journalism to bolster his activism, writing for left-wing publications such as Workers World and The Great Speckled Bird. He used his talents in photography by taking photos of protests and events he attended for use in articles by him and others.
Gardner began working with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) as the Director of Communication and Public Education in 1986. During his time with the organization, he worked with the media and the public, facilitated outreach efforts and events, and designed media campaigns. Years later, Gardner served as the Managing Director for the Media Education Foundation (MEF), a nonprofit organization founded by UMass Communication Professor Sut Jhally that produced educational documentaries to explore a range of social issues such as racism, gender inequities, politics, and the environment through the lens of mainstream media coverage and representation. In this position he was instrumental in developing the organization into a leading producer of educational videos in the US.
Gardner returned to school several times after originally graduating from UVA in 1971. He received a masters degree in Journalism from the University of Georgia in 1982, a masters in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard in 1985, and later a Ph.D. in Communication from UMASS Amherst in 2005. Throughout his PhD program and since its completion, Gardner has been a professor of Communication at Westfield State University, using his experience from a life full of activism to continue educating a new generation of students and activists.
