Memorial meeting honors Ray Sparrow

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By ASHER The following are excerpts from opening remarks made by Asher Harer at a memorial meeting organized by friends, family, and co-workers of Ray Sparrow, who died on Nov. 16, 1985.

We have come together this afternoon to remember the life of a remarkable person who left his mark on history.

He was a founding member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and a member of its National Committee from 1941 until 1975. For many years he was a "footloose radical" who took any assignment offered: 1936-1938 to Chicago; 1938 back to San Francisco, there to work in the Merchant Marine.

We will remember Ray's many contributions to the working-class strug -gle for emancipation and socialism: Ray's joy in a good fight, a victory on the picket line, or a political struggle over strategy and tactics that clarified and moved things ahead; his gift as a storyteller.

Ray Sparrow building superintendant. He carried a union card and was an active revolutionary so -cialist. He supported all strikes of the construction workers. No one ever died on a job run by Ray. He was job safety personified. And he helped open up construction jobs for oppressed national minorities and women.

We feel saddened by Ray's death. This gathering is a celebration of his life.

SAN FRANCISCO—A memorial meeting was held Sunday, Dec.15, for Ray Sparrow, Socialist Workers Party member and lifelong unionist, who died of a massive heart attack Nov. 16. Over 100 people crowded the ILWU Local 6 Warehousemen's hall, where the meeting was held.

Organized by family members, friends, and co-workers of Sparrow's, the memorial celebration of his life was chaired by Asher Harer [see excerpts of Harer's remarks, this page]. Several speakers shared their admiration of Ray's long years of work in the socialist movement, on the job, and as a very loving father to his son David.

Speakers included Ray's sister, Naomi Sparrow; Jeff Mackler of Socialist Action, who had traveled to revolutionary Grenada with Ray; longtime friend and comrade Ada Farrell; Carole Hayden, a friend; Roland Sheppard, who had worked with Ray politically and in the construction trades. Other friends and comrades spoke from the floor. Most moving were the comments made by Ray's son, David Sparrow, who called his father his "best friend," a tribute that would have made Ray proud.

Messages from many of Ray's old friends and comrades were read, including from: Shawn Maloney, Seattle; Frank Lovell and David Weiss, New York; Ted and Dot Selander and Frank Barbaria, San Diego; Jean Tussey, Cleveland; Augusta Trainor, Boston; Pauline Furth and Charles Curtiss, Los Angeles; Ralph Schoenman, New Jersey; international friends Ruth Bullock, Vancouver, and Pilan, Lily, and Claude, Paris; The Fourth Internationalist Tendency, Freedom So -cialist Party, and others [A message from Ernest Mandel, representing the Fourth International, was received after the meeting-The Editors].

SWP leadership to its basic program. He and many others were arbitrarily expelled that year on trumped-up charges from the party that he had for so long and loyally helped build.

But this did not detract from his desire to keep on working for the socialist cause. Although he was not a member of any of the organizations that arose after the purges in the SWP, this was due not to changes in his commitment to the socialist future but to debilitating illnesses.

Mit Snipper will be missed by those who knew him and appreciated his work.

Lil never aspired to leadership posts. She resisted speaking at internal or public meetings of the Los Angeles branch.

But there was an exception to this. Several years ago, in July 1978, when she reached the 50th anniversary of her activity on behalf of socialism, the local SWP branch organized a special event to mark the date. At this combination meeting-picnic Lil did speak to a large audience that had come to celebrate the occasion and she did an outstanding job of describing her half-century in the struggle for socialism.

In 1983 Lil resigned from the Socialist Workers Party largely because it was dropping its revolutionary politics and factionally expelling many of its best members. Thereafter she did not join any other organization but retained her support for socialism to the end.

Her death is a blow to the movement. She combined the best traits in humanity-dedication to the struggle for a decent world with day-to-day concern and love for her fellow human beings. —MILTON ALVIN