Nash, Herman B., Jr.

Background on Herman B. Nash

Herman Beaman “Keek” Nash, Jr., was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on August 18, 1926, to Grace Leonard, a former teacher, and Herman B. Nash, a postal worker who had served in World War I. The second of three children, Nash and his brothers, Howard and John, enjoyed a comfortable childhood during the Great Depression. Nicknaming himself “Skeezix” (which was quickly shortened to “Keek”) to distinguish himself from his father, Nash attended Van Sickle Junior High School in Springfield. He took college-level courses in educational theory at American International College while attending Classical High School, from which he graduated in 1944. Raised in the Congregationalist church, he took religion seriously and attended church services regularly, and even exchanged bible verses with a sweetheart. After high school, Nash enlisted in the United States Army.

Nash first went into the Army Specialized Training Program at the University of Connecticut at Storrs. From there he was transferred to Camp Blanding in Florida, where he was part of the 190th Training Battalion. While in Florida, Nash was selected for an intensive language program that would train him in Japanese. Sent to the University of Chicago in March of 1945, Nash entered a city that was growing and changing in the wake of several waves of racial migration and ethnic immigration, and it what he saw of the lives of African Americans and tensions among blacks and whites affected him deeply. In the fall of 1945, on a break from his classes, Nash traveled to Gary, Indiana, for a rally, headlined by Frank Sinatra, promoting race tolerance at a high school; a photograph of him with a fellow black soldier he had befriended on the train ride there appeared in a Life magazine article about the event. Nash’s passion for equality and the fair treatment of all people would be a driving force in his life. From Chicago, Nash went to Camp Beale in California and then to San Francisco before being moved with his regiment to Seattle to avoid the flood of troops returning from the Pacific Theater. Nash and his fellow soldiers, including a group of friends who had managed to stay together since leaving Chicago, were then shipped out to American-occupied Japan, aboard the U.S.S. General M.B. Stewart as part of the 25th Infantry Division in March 1946.

In Osaka, Nash served as a special investigator for the G-2 Intelligence Division, keeping weekly reports on military activity, civilian attitudes, rationing, black market smuggling rings, inflation, illegal gun sales, a kidnapping circle, labor agitation, and the Shinto religion, including a warlike Shinto sect. He became very attached to Japan and its culture and collected Japanese postcards, stamps, and other paraphernalia, and long after he left the country he would keep in contact with numerous friends made there. In August of 1946 Nash was reassigned to the Tokai-Hokuriku Military Government Team as an advance agent for educational survey and development projects in local Japanese schools and universities. His duties included inspecting schools, evaluating and dismissing militaristic teachers and leaders, reviewing textbooks, and “keeping things moving in a Democratic direction,” as he wrote in a letter to his parents. This new job brought him to Nagoya, where he continued to explore the culture and language of the Japanese people as well as expanding his appreciation for education and teaching.

In his position at the Headquarters for Military Government in Nagoya, Nash oversaw the investigation of local Buddhist and Shinto religions, watching them for subversive acts and anti-American rhetoric, but he also had a more personal interest. He had long been fascinated by religion, and although raised a Congregationalist, he regularly attended services for Methodists, Jews, Buddhists, and many other denominations, to further his own understanding of religion and to expand his knowledge of the world as a whole. While in Japan, Nash began to study Buddhism and explored many of the country’s temples and religious monuments. For a time he considered becoming a Christian missionary so that he might return to Japan to teach in a religious capacity. After completing his term of service, Nash was honorably discharged and returned home to Massachusetts in 1947.

While attending classes at American International College, Nash lectured at local churches and at Classical High School about his time in the service and the religions and culture of Japan. It was around this time that Nash came upon an article by Reverend Clarence V. Howell, leader of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith social justice organization promoting peace and working to improve race relations through education. In 1948 Nash moved to New York City, where he lectured for the Fellowship on topics relating to the urban poor as well as on his experiences in Japan. It was here that he met Yoneko Tajitsu, a Japanese American visiting nurse who had been interned at the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho. The two fell in love, were married by Howell on June 17, 1951, and moved to an apartment in the Bronx. Nash was becoming increasingly radical; he joined the United World Federalists, collected Marxist and Socialist newsletters and publications, and became a member of the Jefferson School of Social Science, an organization which would soon be targeted by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Committee.

The 1950s in New York were a very active time for Herman Nash. In 1956, he took a job as a brakeman on the New York Central Railroad and became active in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Engineermen. He stayed with the railroad until around 1957, when he decided to return to school, earning a masters degree in Education from Columbia Teachers College. He and Yon moved to Maywood, New Jersey, and in 1959 he started work as a chemistry teacher at Teaneck High School. Teaneck would be the new battleground in Nash’s life, where he pushed for safer laboratory standards, fought against the racial prejudices of his fellow teachers, and created a friendly and open classroom environment known for its emphasis on rigorous academic inquiry and the pursuit of knowledge. By 1961 the couple had four children, Phillip, Paul, Alice, and Thomas, rounding out the family that Nash would come to call “HAPPY to a T” a play on his, Yon’s, and the children’s initials. The children were raised primarily by Yon, who returned to school to pursue a masters degree in Special Education at William Patterson College in New Jersey. After teaching for some years, she worked in publishing and in retirement was active with the Maywood Library.

In March 1965, Nash traveled to Selma, Alabama, to join Martin Luther King, Jr., on his march to Montgomery, an experience he captured in a series of photographs. This event may have helped fuel his high standards for Teaneck and his determination to promote equality in the classroom. In March 1969, Nash and some of his students staged a sit-in in the principal’s office to protest the inequality in the ways vocational and college-bound students were being educated. Threatened with arrest, the protesters relocated to the superintendent’s office, at which point Nash was removed and suspended from teaching. He was also sentenced to six months in jail, a sentence which was finally reversed after a protracted legal battle that reached the New Jersey State Supreme Court. Unable to return to his job at Teaneck, Nash returned to the railroads, this time as an engineer for the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) where he remained until his retirement in the late 1980s. At Conrail he again became active in the rail workers union, integrating his unionization efforts with fair practices in regard to race. His mother passed away in 1973 and his father in 1977.

After his retirement, Nash and Yon had a brief battle over Yon’s benefits from the United States Railroad Retirement Board before finally settling into a more slow-paced life, trading letters with his children and grandchildren while writing his memoirs. In 2004, after almost forty-five years in Maywood, Yon and Nash relocated to San Diego to enjoy their retirement. Just three weeks after the move, Yon died suddenly of a bleeding ulcer. Nash continued to live in San Diego until his own death in June 2010.