[2] He joined the Young Socialist Alliance, and became a prominent leader of People's Democracy, whose other members included Michael Farrell and Eamonn McCann, contemporaries of his at university.
[1] Toman stood for People's Democracy in Mid Armagh at the 1969 Northern Ireland general election, where he took 27.7% of the vote.
At the border customs post, he presented two books which had been condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, The Ginger Man and The Girl With Green Eyes, the first of which was then banned in the Republic of Ireland, to challenge that state's censorship laws.
Following Bloody Sunday (1972), he visited Armagh and Dublin to raise support before travelling to attempt to defend Free Derry.
[1] Toman later joined Sinn Féin, and he stood unsuccessfully for the organisation in South Down at the 1982 Northern Ireland Assembly election.