By Martin J. Murray / The Rag Blog / December 4, 2025
I knew Larry Caroline for only a few short years in Austin. It was a memorable experience. My first recollection of Larry was at the Capitol Building around October 10, 1967. This tall, lanky guy with a big beard got up to speak. He put into words what I knew but could not articulate clearly. The guy — Larry — went through a long list of “wrongs” in America, persistent racial injustice, continued segregation in the South, corporate greed, political indifference. He said “you can’t change things one at a time. The whole bloody mess (using a British phrase) has to go. Then more.
Wow. He put into words what I was thinking but was unable to articulate.
Soon after, I started going to SDS meetings. I saw Larry in action. He could formulate an argument so quickly. What I remember in watching him in dialogue with young people who did not share his views that he was never demeaning, dismissive, or arrogant. He showed with rational rigor the “wrongness” of their ideas defending capitalism and the war. I have never forgotten his style of debate and have tried to emulate it ever since. Disarm your critics but never demean them as persons.
Larry was part of the “big three”: slightly older men whom I admired. Martin Wiginton was the ultimate tactician — focusing on what to do in building demonstrations. Greg Calvert was the strategist, thinking beyond the antiwar movement about how to build coalitions to challenge capitalism and its war fever. Larry was the great thinker, using rational thought and logic to work through big problems.
In Larry’s last term in the Philosophy Department (I believe Spring term 1969), I was his teaching assistant. What a joy. I got to hear his lectures the whole semester. He was so smart
Frank Erwin was, of course, the Grand Inquisitor. But John Silber was his handyman. Greg Calvert once likened Silber to the famous quote about Talleyrand –“he’s nothing but shit in silk stockings.”
Larry was done such a great disservice by Erwin, Silber, and the leadership of the Philosophy department. Through it all, Larry maintained a high public profile.
In the time I spent with Larry before he started working at the alternative school Greenbriar, I learned how to think. I read his dissertation chapter named “Why be Moral?” It was so informed and erudite.
His legacy for me is straightforward: he got me to think and to be kind to others, even when we disagree with them.
Martin J. Murray is the author of Insurgent Politics in the Lone Star State: Remembering the Antiwar Movement in Austin, Texas, 1967-1973.
Rag Blog Afterword
Larry Caroline passed away on November 7, 2025. He was 85. An obituary shared by Larry Caroline’s family recounts his early life:
Born in upstate New York, Yisrael (Larry) grew up in a Yiddish-speaking home that valued Jewish identity but was not observant. The experience of facing discrimination as a Jewish child awakened in him a lifelong drive to stand up for those who were mistreated.
While studying philosophy at the University of Rochester, he became president of the NAACP chapter and a leader in the campus movement for civil rights. He organized protests against racist fraternities and became an outspoken advocate for equality and peace. His early ideals, deeply rooted in justice and moral clarity, shaped his work as a professor and public speaker.
After earning a fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, he taught at Kentucky State College during the civil rights struggle. Later, as a professor at the University of Texas, he became known for his passionate opposition to the Vietnam War. His remarks at a protest rally, calling for “a revolution” to end the war, made front-page news across Texas and ultimately led to his dismissal from the university.
Barbara Hines, who was featured along with Judy Smith in the documentary Lone Star Three, shared this memory with The Rag Blog: “Larry’s philosophy course in the spring of 1969 made such an impact in my life. Introducing me to Herbert Marcuse and Judy Smith.”
