Politician, Civil Rights Activist and Author. Born Thomas Emmet Hayden, he was an American social and political activist, author, and politician. In 1960, while a student at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, he was involved in the formation of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), then dedicated to desegregating the South. At Michigan, he took up political causes including the civil rights movement. He wrote fiery editorials for the campus newspaper and contemplated a career in journalism, but upon graduation, he turned down a newspaper job. He joined the fledgling Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), went freedom-riding during civil rights protests in the South and was beaten and briefly jailed in Mississippi and Georgia. He married a fellow activist, Sandra Cason, and together they witnessed the violence of the battle against segregation. He returned to Ann Arbor, where he was enlisted by the SDS to draft the Port Huron Statement, a call to action he hoped would spread to the rest of the country. In 1965, he made his first visit to North Vietnam with an unauthorized delegation. He found out later that his movements were being tracked and recorded by the FBI, as they would be from then on. In 1967, he returned to Hanoi with another group and was asked by North Vietnamese leaders to bring three prisoners of war back to the United States. With the prisoners suffering medical problems, the U.S. State Department thanked Hayden for his humanitarian action. In 1968, he helped organize anti-war demonstrations during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that turned violent and resulted in the notorious Chicago 7 trial. After a circus-like trial, Hayden and three others were convicted of crossing state lines to incite riot. The convictions were later overturned, and an official report deemed the violence "a police riot". In 1971, Hayden met actress Jane Fonda after he heard her give an eloquent anti-war speech. The following year they became a couple. He was divorced from Cason and Fonda was divorced from director Roger Vadim. They were married for 17 years and had a son, Troy. The couple were demonized by the political right after they visited North Vietnam in 1972 and she was photographed on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun. With heavy financial support from Fonda, Hayden plunged into California politics in the late 1970s. He formed the Campaign for Economic Democracy and was elected to the Assembly in 1982. In 1992, he won election to the state Senate advocating for environmental and educational issues, however, his radical past disturbed conservatives and interfered with his legislative initiatives. By then, he and Fonda were divorced and he married actress Barbara Williams, and they had a son, Liam. In 1994, Hayden was defeated in a run for the state governorship, and he lost a bid to become mayor of Los Angeles. After leaving public office, Hayden wrote and traveled extensively, lecturing, teaching and speaking out against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was also an advocate for animals, and in 2012 he lobbied Gov. Jerry Brown to preserve a piece of legislation known as Hayden's Law, which he had authored to protect shelter animals from premature euthanasia. Hayden, who suffered a stroke in 2015, died after a lengthy illness.