Marv Davidov is known locally as a guiding light of the Honeywell Project, the campaign to stop the Minneapolis-based firm’s manufacture of conventional and nuclear weapons. In You Can’t Do That! Marv Davidov, Nonviolent Revolutionary (Nodin Press), poet Carol Masters provides an empathetic account of the colorful life of a local radical political activist. She interviewed Davidov over many hours, while he was undergoing dialysis treatments.
The chapters dealing with Davidov’s participation in the Civil Rights Movement — including participating in a 1961 Freedom Ride, at the urging of the late Zev Aelony — and his confinement in Mississippi’s notorious Parchman Farm prison, are especially compelling. This first-rate local history volume sheds new light on recent American history. — Mordecai Specktor
