A Saving Remnant: The Radical Lives
of Barbara Deming and David McReynolds
by Martin Duberman
The New Press. 275 pages (illustrated), $27.95
IN A SAVING REMNANT, historian Martin Duberman offers a fascinating dual biography of two left-wing activists and writers, Barbara Deming and David McReynolds. Both Deming and McReynolds were open about their sexuality despite the prevailing homo-prejudice within the larger culture as well as in left-wing groups of the mid-20th century.
Duberman begins with a note explaining that the book’s title uses a phrase that “has historically referred to the small number of people neither indoctrinated nor frightened into accepting oppressive social conditions. Unlike the general population, they openly challenge the reigning powers-that-be and speak out early and passionately against injustice of various kinds.” He goes on to explain that one of his goals in writing the book is to explore the prominent role of gay people in the “saving remnant” of U.S. politics in the middle to late 20th century. He had identified a half-dozen such individuals but settled on Deming and McReynolds as his primary subjects.
The two activists had a lot in common. Both were early advocates for nuclear disarmament, the civil rights movement, nonviolence as a tactic, and an end to the Vietnam War. Two issues that divided them were those of women’s liberation and gay and lesbian rights. On women’s rights, McReynolds maintained that the patriarchy had already been overthrown, while Deming insisted that a persistent gulf separated men’s and women’s rights and privileges.
Barbara Deming was born in 1917 and died in 1984. David McReynolds was born in 1928 and continues to live in New York City. Both came from solidly middle-class families, and both wrestled with their gay and lesbian identities during the repressive decades before Stonewall.
The two activists each had relationships, both intimate and casual, with some of the major artists and writers of their day. McReynolds had friendships with choreographer Alvin Ailey and with Allen Ginsberg. Deming had an ill-fated romance at age sixteen with the sister of Edna St. Vincent Millay, and she dated the Broadway mega-star Lotte Lenya. Both Deming and McRey-nolds crossed paths with Martin Luther King, Bayard Rustin, Andrea Dworkin, and a number of other radicals and visionaries.
At times, the narrative loses some of its momentum, as when Duberman writes about the internecine ideological battles that raged within leftist organizations. But the writing is lively and engaging for the most part. A Saving Remnant is an in-depth study of what is means to live the life of someone single-mindedly committed to a cause. Both Deming and McReynolds strived to live up to their ideals. Inevitably, both faced huge challenges as they tried to reconcile their very complex personal needs with the demands of their moral and political visions.
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Irene Javors is the author of Culture Notes: Essays on Sane Living
