Early Life
Born in Bridgewater, Massachusetts to Armenian immigrant parents who had escaped the Armenian Genocide, Garry grew up in a farm town in California's Central Valley. He worked his way through law school at night at a cleaning shop and was a Depression-era socialist who began his legal career defending militant trade unions. Like many in his generation, Garry earned his law degree without attending college, and suffered difficulty with spelling and syntax. An avowed Marxist lawyer, Garry earned a reputation of fighting for underdogs. He insisted on a full truthful disclosure from those he represented, and had a sign on his desk that read "the only clients of mine who go to San Quentin are the ones who lie to me."
In 1948, Garry was brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Garry declared that he was both a Christian and a Communist and, in response to queries regarding the denial of God by Communists, Garry responded by saying, "Mr. Chairman, what the Communists do for their God is their own business. What I do for my God is my own, and none of yours!" In the 1950s, Garry represented other alleged Communists before the HUAC and refused to answer questions himself stating, "I told them to kiss my ass."
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Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)