Chicago Mourns Studs Terkel

Author, oral historian, and firebrand leftist will be sorely missed
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 1, 2008 7:18 AM CDT

Chicago has lost its finest citizen with the death of Studs Terkel, Roger Ebert writes in his Chicago Sun-Times blog. The author "represented the joyous, scrappy, liberal, generous, wise-cracking heart of this city," Ebert writes, and chronicled the lives of countless Chicagoans. “He was the most widely and deeply loved man I ever hope to know," Ebert writes.

The proudly leftist Terkel has missed the election and never got to see the Cubs win the World Series, Ebert writes, but otherwise packed everything possible into his 96 years. John Nichols notes in the Nation that Americans would be wise “not merely to recall but to emulate the disdain for moderation, the enduring progressive faith and the delighted determination to speak truth to power” that defined Terkel’s life. (More Studs Terkel stories.)

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