Ethel Bailey, presente!

Ethel Bailey, a beloved longtime comrade of the Detroit branch of Workers World Party, died on March 2. She was 93 years old.

Ethel Bailey in Detroit, 1987.

Comrade Ethel met Workers World Party when she was already 70 years old. But she had been a revolutionary all her life, growing up in the South, dealing with the racism faced by all African Americans, living in economic poverty, but in reality being one of the richest people any of her comrades had ever known.

From the time the branch first met Ethel in 1982, during the Food is a Right Campaign that followed the launching of the All Peoples Congress, the comrades had the privilege of associating with a remarkable individual.

Comrade Ethel was the most militant person any of us ever saw. She hated the cops. At every demonstration she would go up to the police, particularly the African American cops, and just cuss them out for defending the system. Many a cop would cower and flee under Ethel’s verbal assault. She would chase them and keep going after them. None of us had ever seen anything like it.

Despite living at the bottom rung of the economic ladder, Ethel understood the importance of finances in supporting the party. She gave her weekly pledge of $1 like clockwork. She participated in fund raising at every demonstration.

She made it to Washington, D.C., for every national march built by the party and like-minded organizations from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s. Even after the grueling 10- to 12-hour bus trip, she would get an apron and sell buttons like nobody else. When the Detroit branch had fish fries to raise funds, Ethel would stand over the stove for hours. She would go out and sell peanuts at fireworks displays.

Comrade Ethel took so much pride in being able to help support the party and was an example to all. She was very active in the Detroit branch during a period when the party launched numerous initiatives to challenge the growing economic crisis in Michigan brought on by the restructuring of the auto industry and its effects on all workers, especially African Americans.

She was a leading activist in the Food is a Right Campaign, which demanded the release and distribution of all surplus food from government warehouses; the Job is a Right Campaign, which demanded a moratorium on plant closings and guaranteed jobs for all; and the Housing is a Right Campaign, which demanded a moratorium on evictions for all whose benefits had been eliminated by racist Michigan Gov. John Engler.

She helped organize the Tent City of the Unemployed in Lansing, Mich., in 1987, and helped bust up the National Gov ernors Conference the next year, when displaced workers descended on the northern resort town of Traverse City.

Comrade Ethel helped the party achieve ballot status in Michigan, gathering a good number of the 35,000 signatures during the winters of 1984 and 1990 which put Workers World Party on the ballot and led to the party getting the largest socialist vote in Michigan history.

She marched every year in the lesbian/gay/bi/trans pride march, getting recognition from the podium as the oldest participant. She took Workers World newspaper with her everywhere, distributing it wherever she went.

Ethel had a great sense of humor with a wry wit and tremendous laugh. She made a point of always speaking to young people about being a revolutionary and not being afraid to fight and challenge the system.

Ethel would purchase and read African American newspapers from around the country and watch only Canadian news because she had no trust in the mainstream U.S. media. She was very proud of the accomplishments of African Americans.

She was always for more militant struggle and would say how we need to get out there and boycott. She was the living embodiment of a communist fighter and one of the most wonderful people we have had the privilege to know.

“We’ve got to fight,” she would say. The time is coming for that fight and we carry her with us with love.