Alexander Saxton dies; UCLA historian, author was 93

When Alexander Saxton dropped out of Harvard in 1939, his faculty adviser urged him to consult a psychiatrist. His parents were distraught. But Saxton's desire to set the terms of his life would take him far from the ivy-covered halls he found stifling.

To appease his parents, he finished his undergraduate education at the University of Chicago. Then, the son of two professionals became a laborer and union organizer, working in railroad roundhouses, steel mills, shipyards and construction. He joined the Communist Party and wrote well-regarded works of 1940s proletarian literature.

In the 1950s, his literary aspirations were quashed by McCarthyism, and Saxton changed course again: He earned a doctorate in history from UC Berkeley and became a tenured professor at UCLA, where he agitated for ethnic studies and gained prominence as the author of "The Indispensable Enemy," considered a classic in the study of race in America....