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Author Henry 'Sam' Chauncey Speaks At Southport's Pequot Library

SOUTHPORT, Conn. – Author Henry "Sam" Chauncey will speak at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Pequot Library. 

Henry "Sam" Chauncey, Yale '57 and author of "May Day at Yale, 1970: Recollections: The Trial of Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers" will speak Sept. 20 at the Pequot Library.

Henry "Sam" Chauncey, Yale '57 and author of "May Day at Yale, 1970: Recollections: The Trial of Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers" will speak Sept. 20 at the Pequot Library.

Photo Credit: Contributed

He will talk for 30-40 minutes about his new book, "May Day at Yale, 1970: Recollections: The Trial of Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers," followed by a question-and-answer period and book sales, signing and refreshments. The talk is free. 

On April 23, 1970, the New Haven Register printed this opening line to an editorial, "An explosive situation is brewing in New Haven over the impending Black Panther murder trial, and the times call for an immediate lowering of the heat and cooling-off of passions." New Haven was preparing for a May Day demonstration supporting the Black Panthers and decrying the official authorities of the city. Fears were growing and concerns about violence mounted. 

At the time, Chauncey was an assistant to the president of Yale University. He was assigned the task of dealing with radicalism on and off campus. His new book of recollections was published 45 years later. 

Chauncey graduated from Yale in 1957. He then worked for Yale, successively, as an assistant dean of Yale College, special assistant to the president of Yale (Kingman Brewster) and vice president and secretary of the university. He played a major role in bringing about the admission of women to Yale’s undergraduate college and in maintaining peace on the campus during the turbulent 1960s and 1970s. 

In 1982, he founded a nonprofit entity Science Park Development Corp., to renovate an 80-acre abandoned industrial site west of the Yale campus. It both supported high-technology startup companies and attempted to create jobs for a high-unemployment neighborhood. 

In 1988, he became president and CEO of Gaylord Hospital in Wallingford. It was then an acute rehabilitation hospital that treated those who suffered from major traumatic accidents and events, such as brain injury and spinal cord injury. In 1995 he returned to Yale as lecturer and head of the Health Management Program in the Yale School of Public Health. He retired in 2001. 

Chauncey lives in New Haven. 

Visit www.pequotlibrary.org to learn more.

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