John Beecher

John Beecher, 1904-1978, was an activist poet who wrote about the Southern United States during the Great Depression and the American Civil Rights Movement. Beecher was extremely active in the American labor and Civil Rights movements. During the McCarthy era, Beecher lost his teaching job for refusing to sign a state loyalty oath; seventeen years later the California Supreme Court overturned this and reinstated him. Beecher's books included Report to the Stockholders, To Live and Die in Dixie, In Egypt Land, and a 1974 Macmillian edition of his collected poems.