Dave Beckwith

I remember Dave from when I interviewed for my first assistant professor job at the University of Toledo in 1988. I gave my obligatory job lecture, and there was there was this guy in the back of the room with all this facial hair and a deep bass voice that asked the hardest questions--good hard questions as opposed to the gotcha questions that academics like to ask. I knew then he was different in the most real kind of way. I remember when I arrived at the University the following fall, I got a phone call from Dave inviting me to lunch at the "Med Room" on campus. I remember his affinity for raw kibbeh while I dined on spinach pie. About halfway through the meal, he put a sheet of paper in front of me--a number list of research projects he wanted me to do. "How many of these can you do right away?" he asked. I negotiated him down to one--a study of the strengths and weaknesses of the neighborhood development organizations in Toledo. When I wrote the report for the study--pretty depressing given the lack of success of most of the groups--I handed it to Dave and rather embarrassedly apologized that I couldn't come up with anything more positive. Dave took a quick look at it and said "I know exactly what we'll do." He sent the report off to the printers and it came back authored not by "Randy Stoecker" but by "Randy Stoecker, PhD. When I asked him why he thought he could tack that obnoxious title onto the report without my permission he said "When we organize a street demonstration we always get the neighborhood priest to lead it and we make him put on his collar. You're our priest and that's your collar!" He then organized a meeting of funders, government officials, and the neighborhood development orgs, and the Working Group on Neighborhoods was off and running on a multi-year mission. About a decade later you could see new homes springing up on vacant blocks all over town. I remember us writing an article together, and presenting at the American Sociological Association (ASA) annual meetings. To save him the registration fee, I sent the ASA a letter telling them that he was not a sociologist and therefore did not need to pay the fee. For years after he proudly displayed on his office wall the resultant letter from the ASA certifying him as a non-sociologist. And after the conference I remember him telling me "a sociologist is someone who likes to come kicking and screaming through an open door." I remember one New Years Eve, when Toledo did its version of the popular street celebration of the day. Tammy, Haley, and I ran into him at the start of the people's parade. He had a drum with him and handed Haley the drumsticks so she could bang on the drum during the parade. I remember his outward Santa Claus-style joviality, but every once in a while, in a quiet moment, after a meeting or an action that didn't go quite right, I could glimpse the deeper Dave--a deep well of full emotions and enduring commitments. I remember the last piece of advice he gave to me over the phone just a few weeks before he passed, as I was complaining of the far right takeover of Wisconsin. He paused to light up a cigar and then said "In organizing, politics is like the weather. Not much you can do about it, but you go out and organize anyway. Sometimes it's nice and sunny and you can wear shorts and other times you get wet. But you keep organizing."