Ethel Bailey, presente!
By
Jerry Goldberg
Detroit
Published Mar 30, 2005 10:05 AM
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.
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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.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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