Betsy Gimbel: An audacious fighter
By Deirdre Griswold
Frances Dostal of Cleveland remembers Betsy
Gimbel shinnying up a flag pole during the Vietnam War to
replace a U.S. flag with one representing the National
Liberation Front of South Vietnam.
Betsy died on April 29 after an illness. As a member of
Youth Against War & Fascism in Cleveland, and later of
Workers World Party in New York, she found ways to put her
audacious stamp on the progressive struggles of her day.
She let the air out of the tires of a police car while
anti-war protesters were being arrested in Cleveland. She
talked her way into a Republican dinner to heckle President
Richard Nixon. She was the main witness against Cleveland
police after they beat up young demonstrators from SDS in a
prison yard.
In the early 1970s Betsy was one of a small group of women
to win jobs as shop clerks in the New York sanitation
department's garages and other maintenance shops. As an
activist in Local 1549 of DC 37, AFSCME, she became the union
protector of these women, who immediately came under a huge
chauvinist attack by male garage workers. Almost all the women
in this first group were forced out. Without Betsy, who put up
feisty resistance to harassment, none would have made it.
Today, there are women clerks in virtually every shop, as well
as many openly gay clerks.
After she lost one of her legs due to a medical problem,
Betsy became an organizer and advocate for the disabled. She
was the secretary of Disabled in Action, and led the fight for
access to mass transit for the disabled. The group blocked
buses with their wheelchairs demanding the public vehicles be
made accessible--a demand they won.
Betsy many, many times organized contingents of disabled
people in progressive New York demonstrations. Whether it was
in support of lesbian, gay, bi and trans rights or marching
against U.S. military intervention abroad, the spirited group
of activists in wheelchairs or with seeing-eye dogs gave
inspiration to the whole crowd.
Betsy met her life-partner Mike Gimbel through the political
struggle. But they found they had another passion in common:
they both loved reptiles, from snakes and iguanas to
alligators. Their apartment in Brooklyn, where they lived in an
old commercial loft that they fixed up with pools and overhead
branches where their pets could roam and relax, became a mecca
for neighborhood children. They didn't have to pay money to go
to the Bronx Zoo. They could go to Mike and Betsy's place for
an exotic and educational tour.
Betsy for several years headed the Larry Davis Defense
Committee, which was hated by the cops because Davis had
tangled with them in a gun battle when he tried to stop
drug-running in Harlem. Betsy and Mike began receiving
threatening phone calls at night. Then the police raided their
Brooklyn apartment, killing or injuring many of their pets.
Betsy was courageous and will long be remembered by people
across a broad spectrum of communities.
Reprinted from the May 20, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS ::
SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page