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WHEREAS, Dr. Charles McCollester was born on June 24, 1943 in Brooklyn, New York, attended Boston College to study political science and history, and eventually made his way to the University of Louvain in Belgium, where he continued his studies at l'Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, successfully defending his doctoral thesis, Emmanuel Levinas and Modern Jewish Thought, magna cum laude, in December of 1968; and
WHEREAS, though Charles excelled in academic pursuits, he embraced a fierce sense of adventure imbued with a solidarity for the working class, taking jobs in manufacturing, retail, and trucking that helped finance his education and extensive travel throughout western and eastern Europe, the Middle East, and north and west Africa; and
WHEREAS, in the late 1960s Charles did scholarly research at the Hebrew University Library in Israel, which he supplemented with picking lemons and grapefruits on Kibbutz Yasur in Galilee; he traveled extensively throughout Israel and Palestine, from Kantara on the Suez Canal to Quneitra in the Golan Heights, and once walked the “dangerous path” from Jerusalem to Jericho, famous for the story of the Good Samaritan, and spent a night in the fields outside Bethlehem on Christmas 1967; and
WHEREAS, Charles worked as head branch librarian for two and a half years in Gary, Indiana; he took an active role in the Civil Rights Movement, including the March on Washington in 1963 and Freedom Rides on the Eastern Shore of Maryland; he taught philosophy at St. Joseph's Calumet College in East Chicago; he hitchhiked to Oaxaca, Mexico and lived in Scotland, London, and Sardinia before crossing the Sahara and embarking on a journey from Nigeria, through Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, into Dakar in Senegal, the Gambia, and Timbuktu in Mali; and in 1972, with Linda Gryzbek, he traveled through central Africa toward Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where he and Linda married; and
WHEREAS, Charles has been active in the labor movement for mo...
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