Herman E. Liveright

01/19/2001

Herman Elsas Liveright, 89, of Pittsfield Road died Friday at his winter home in Corpus Christi, Texas, of heart failure following surgery for a hip replacement. Mr. Liveright and his wife, the former Betty Fouche, in 1972 founded the former Berkshire Forum in Stephentown, N.Y., an educational center that organized weekend workshops on controversial social and political issues. Born Jan. 11, 1912, in New York City, son of publisher Horace B. Liveright and Lucile Elsas Liveright Emptage, he grew up in New Rochelle, N.Y., where he attended public schools. He also attended Deerfield Academy in Deerfield and majored in drama at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pa. After college, Mr. Liveright worked at Paramount Pictures in New York City as a screen reader and became director of the Screen Readers' Guild. He was an associate director of ABC-TV in New York City until 1953, when he moved to New Orleans to become a producer at WDSU-TV, an NBC affiliate. Mr. Liveright became involved in desegregation there and was fired from the station after being indicted for contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions or to cooperate with Mississippi Sen. James Eastland's subcommittee on internal security. He moved to Philadelphia and did fund raising for nonprofit organizations, then joined Highlander Research and Educational Center in Knoxville, Tenn., as development director. He moved to Lenox in 1972. He and his wife's desire for a political discussion forum that could promote socialist ideas resulted in the founding of the Berkshire Forum in Hancock. A year later, the internationally recognized forum moved to Stephentown, where it operated for 18 years. The couple also led study trips to Cuba, East Germany and Panama. The Liverights retired as forum directors in 1990 to work with U.S. political prisoners. They traveled for two years across the country, visiting and interviewing political prisoners at state and federal prisons. The book "Their Chance to Speak" is a compilation of their interviews. In 1994, they published "This Just In," a monthly bulletin containing information contributed by and distributed to political prisoners. Mr. Liveright was a founding member of Philadelphians for Equal Justice and an American Communist Party member during the 1930s and '40s. Besides his wife of 65 years, he leaves a son, Dr. Timothy Fouche Liveright of Newtown, Pa.; a daughter, Beth Liveright Matuszak, of Oakland, Calif.; a sister, Lucy L. Wilson of Newton, and two grandchildren. A memorial service for Herman Liveright will be held Sunday, Feb. 25, at 3 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church, Wendell Avenue, Pittsfield. Mr. Liveright is also survived by two grandchildren, Joshua Aaron Liveright and Elizabeth Stanbury Liveright.

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