The David Horowitz Freedom Center announced that 86-year-old conservative commentator and activist David Horowitz died on Tuesday after losing his battle with cancer.
The David Horowitz Freedom Center, a conservative think tank founded by the conservative icon, shared a video Tuesday on social media reflecting on Horowitz’s life.
“On behalf of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, we are very saddened to announce the passing of the Center’s founder, David Horowitz,” the David Horowitz Freedom Center tweeted. “After a lengthy battle with cancer, David passed yesterday at the age of 86.”
In a follow-up post, the David Horowitz Freedom Center issued a correction, noting that Horowitz had passed away on April 29.
According to The Daily Caller, Horowitz advocated for conservative causes for more than 40 years and established the David Horowitz Freedom Center in 1988.
In Tuesday’s video, the David Horowitz Freedom Center said Horowitz was born on January 10, 1939, in New York and was raised by parents who were committed to the “progressive left” and “its Marxist version of a liberated society.” The video explained that Horowitz followed his parents’ left-wing political beliefs throughout his college education, where he became the editor of a left-wing magazine called “Root & Branch.”
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Despite his commitment to the leftist movement, Horowitz had become “disturbed at the direction” of the leftist movement by 1969. The David Horowitz Freedom Center said Horowitz “realized, even at that time, you couldn’t really remake the world as the left intended without totalitarian coercion.”
The video noted that Horowitz’s transition toward the conservative movement was ultimately prompted by the death of Betty Van Patter in 1975 after he had formed a connection with Black Panther leader Huey Newton.
“In a vignette that Horowitz wrote at the request of the New York Times Magazine, Horowitz recounted the stages of his metamorphosis,” the David Horowitz Freedom Center said. “Being at the center of a heroic myth inspired passions that informed my youthful passage and guided me to the middle of my adult life, but then I was confronted by a reality so inescapable and harsh that it shattered the romance for good.”
The David Horowitz Freedom Center’s video explained that after voting for Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1984, the conservative icon went on to write multiple books exposing the political beliefs of the Democrat Party. Horowitz also launched “FrontPage Magazine,” the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s online publication.
