David Lyons

David Lyons was born in New York City in 1935, grew up in Brooklyn, and has been politically active for peace and civil rights since his early teens. He studied mechanical engineering at The Cooper Union, worked as a skilled machinist and as an engineering draftsman before completing his BA in Philosophy and American Studies at Brooklyn College in 1960, and then earned a PhD in philosophy at Harvard University in 1963. He and his wife Sandra and their infant son spent the next year in Oxford, after which they moved to Ithaca, New York, where she resumed her career as a social worker and he taught philosophy at Cornell University, adding law in 1969. In 1995 they moved to Boston, he to teach at Boston University, she to new social work challenges. Since formally retiring in 2015 he has continued to teach on race and American history, which led to his most recent book, on "The Color Line." He remains politically active, most recently helping to unionize BU adjuncts and then to negotiate their collective bargaining agreements with BU, also serving as a union steward. He commutes by e-bike to campus every day and continues to play squash (at a very modest level). He and Sandy, who have been married since 1955 and are the fortunate parents of three children and three grandchildren, worry about US covert and military interventions abroad and the impact of climate change, especially on today's young people and those as yet unborn.