Rosemarie Hill
By Berta
Joubert
Philadelphia
Rosemarie Hill, a member of the Philadelphia branch of
Workers World Party, died April 9 of cancer at the age of 50.
She had joined the Party in 1996 during its national election
campaign, when WWP fielded two women of color--Monica Moorehead
and Gloria La Riva--for president and vice president of the
United States.
Joining Workers World was for her an empowering experience.
Suddenly, she found this powerful vehicle that could put into
words and deeds the answers to all the social injustice
questions that she had debated all her life. She truly fell in
love with the Party.
This writer remembers her first contact with this amazing
comrade. Rosemarie had left a telephone message at the
All-Peoples Congress office. A co-worker had given her an APC
leaflet that was distributed during a rally by the
Communications Workers union, of which Rosemarie was an active
member.
The leaflet was about the importance of all workers
supporting the struggle to free Mumia Abu-Jamal. Rosemarie's
friend, knowing her progressive views, thought she would be
interested. After that first telephone conversation, her
eagerness to learn the theory of Marxism and apply it with
social activism just exploded. She always said how happy she
was to have met the Party.
The first book that won her over to socialism was Sam
Marcy's "High Tech, Low Pay." She was amazed that it was so
timely. This proved to her the scientific basis of Marxism.
She lived with the problems caused by the capitalist
high-tech revolution. As a shop steward for the Communications
Workers at Bell Atlantic telephone company, she had to deal
with many of the devastating problems that workers are
encountering because of the introduction of
technology--technology that in a socialist system could help
relieve the burden of repetitive and dirty work, but that under
capitalism threatens workers' jobs.
She soon began reading about the Russian, Cuban and other
revolutions, and would frequently draw parallels with current
struggles and issues.
In the three years she spent in the Party, Rosemarie's
activism grew immensely. She organized and participated in
struggles against racism, sexism, lesbian/gay/ bi/transgender
oppression, the U.S. war drive and particularly labor
struggles. She traveled to Detroit with other Philadelphia area
unionists to a rally for the newspaper strikers there. At her
job she collected money every month to not only help Detroit
strikers but to increase consciousness among her co-workers.
She recognized the importance of the unions but also saw their
limitations.
She visited Cuba with the U.S.-Cuba Labor Exchange, and came
back even more firmly convinced of the need for socialism.
She fought to create a socialist world, understanding that
this is the only system that can bring equality and peace to
all.
Rosemarie Hill, presente!
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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