Nancy Kurshan

Who is Nancy Kurshan?

Nancy Sarah Kurshan was born in Brooklyn, NY on February 4, 1944, was raised as a “red diaper baby” and is best known for being a founder of the Youth International Party. She was a participant in the civil rights and peace movements as far back as high school. During her college years in Madison, Wisconsin, she was a member of Friends of SNCC and CORE, and participated in the first demonstration against the Vietnam War in Washington, DC in April 1965. She then began to pursue a Ph.D. in psychology at UC Berkeley where she met Jerry Rubin. She dropped out to join Jerry in New York where they worked for the Mobe on the 1967 demo to shut down the Pentagon.

Nancy initiated a guerrilla theater women’s group called W.I.T.C.H. along with Robin Morgan, Sharon Krebs, and Roz Payne. When Jerry appeared in front of HUAC dressed as an international guerrilla, she joined him, appearing as a witch and put a hex on HUAC employing a secret ingredient in her incense. At the conclusion of the “Chicago Conspiracy Trial,” when all the defendants were initially found guilty, Nancy and Anita Hoffman burned judges’ robes during a press conference as a denunciation of the guilty verdict. Photos of this action appeared on front pages all across the world.