Obituary for Caroline Lund

by Michael Schreiber / November issue of Socialist Action Newspaper

Longtime socialist and trade-union activist Caroline Lund-Sheppard died from Lou Gehrig’s disease on Oct. 12 in Oakland, Calif. She was 62.

Caroline was a leader of the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA) and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) beginning in the 1960s, and was a member of Socialist Action for a brief time in the early 1990s.

Caroline was born in Minneapolis and was recruited to socialism in 1962 while attending nearby Carlton College. She was active in the campus socialist discussion club and the Young Socialist Alliance, along with a number of other Carlton students who later became leaders of the YSA and SWP.

In 1964, Caroline joined the Socialist Workers Party. She and other young socialists in the Minneapolis area had the benefit of being able to learn politics and organizational skills from older Trotskyists in the SWP branch—like Vincent Ray Dunne—who had been active in the great 1934 Teamster-led general strike in that city.

In 1965, Caroline moved to New York City, where her husband, Doug Jenness, had been given an assignment in the YSA national office. Soon afterward, she met Barry Sheppard, another YSA and SWP leader. After divorcing Doug, she married Barry, who remained her companion until her death.

Caroline enrolled at Columbia University, where she was active in the campus committee against the Vietnam War. She also served as a spokesperson for the New York woman’s march against the war in May 1966.

Beginning in 1967, Caroline Lund worked for many years on staff in the national office of the SWP. Her job included writing for the party newspaper, The Militant, and its journal, the International Socialist Review. A number of her articles, especially those dealing with the fledgling women’s liberation movement of the early 1970s, were published as pamphlets.

In late 1968-69, and again in 1977-80, Caroline served, with Barry Sheppard, on assignment by the SWP in Europe as a representative to the Fourth International. After returning to the U.S. in 1980, as part of the SWP’s “turn to industry,” she got a job at the GM plant in Tarrytown, N.Y. She was active as a trade unionist there and in other industries for the rest of her life.

By the early 1980s, the radical movement in the United States was undergoing a downturn. This led most of the central leadership of the SWP, led by National Secretary Jack Barnes, to renounce the SWP’s historic program and to witch hunt and expel Trotskyists from the party. The majority of the expelled comrades came together at the end of 1983 to form Socialist Action.

By 1988, Caroline and Barry found that their political and organizational differences with the Barnes leadership had grown to such an extent that they were compelled to leave the SWP. They later joined Socialist Action and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where Barry took the assignment of National Organizational Secretary.

In 1992, they left Socialist Action to join the Committees of Correspondence, a recent splinter from the Communist Party USA. Not long afterward, they joined the diffuse socialist grouping Solidarity.

Caroline worked at the New United Motors plant in Fremont, Calif., until early 2006 when her illness sidelined her. She was an active member of UAW Local 2244, and for eight years published a popular rank-and-file newsletter, the Barking Dog. She was a strong crusader for rank-and-file democracy in her union, and was elected Trustee of her local.

Socialist Action remembers and honors Caroline Lund-Sheppard for the tireless work that she carried out for the socialist movement. A memorial meeting for her will take place Saturday, Nov. 11, 2 p.m., at the Humanist Hall (390 27th St.) in Oakland.