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| Beatrice Lumpkin addresses striking Starbucks workers in 2024 (Roberta Wood/People's World |
Beatrice Lumpkin wasn't just liberal, or left-leaning, or a secret communist sympathizer. She was an open, enthusiastic, dues-paying member of the Communist Party for nearly 90 years, whose passion for workers' rights put her on the front lines of post-World War II labor struggles in Chicago, from working with Black Panther Fred Hampton to the fight to compensate employees abruptly fired at the closing of the Wisconsin Steel plant in 1980, to the recent unionization of Starbucks employees.
"Bea was born and grew up and lived her life in the Communist Party," said Roberta Wood, former secretary-treasurer of the Communist Party USA.
Lumpkin, 107, died in Hyde Park on Sunday.
Mayor Brandon Johnson, who declared Aug. 3 as "Beatrice Lumpkin Day" in Chicago, called her "a towering figure in the labor movement, an unwavering advocate for fully funded education, and a continued source of inspiration for us all."
"Spanning almost an entire century of public engagement, Lumpkin was deeply involved in movements for workers' rights, civil rights, and educational justice. She advocated for the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively, supported efforts to advance racial justice, and fought for policies that protected vulnerable communities," Johnson continued, in a statement.
"As a teacher and organizer, Bea brought the lessons of solidarity into the classroom. As a math teacher in Chicago Public Schools and at Malcolm X College, she inspired generations of students while remaining deeply engaged building worker power. Through her leadership in the Chicago Teachers Union Retiree Committee and Climate Justice Committee, she built bridges between generations, reminding us that strong schools and strong communities are built through collective action and a steadfast commitment to justice."
She was born in New York in 1918. Her parents, Dora and Morris Shapiro, were Belarus radicals who emigrated to America after the failed Russian revolution of 1905 and ran a laundry. Lumpkin would say she was born "knowing which side I was on." By age 9 she was marching with striking textile workers.
In her mid-teens, she joined the Young Communist League, and since then, she "never had a moment when there was nothing to do," she wrote in her 2013 autobiography, "Joy in the Struggle: My Life and Love." "There were always picket lines for workers on strike, demonstrations to demand food for a hungry family, knocking on doors to sell The Daily Worker, or bring people out to vote."
She made speeches denouncing Hitler and fascism, was involved in the effort to free the Scottsboro Boys, the case of nine Black teens framed for a rape in 1931. She was first arrested leading a demonstration in front of a New York department store in 1935.
She went to Hunter College in Manhattan, but found "union work was too important and too exciting" to waste time in school. She later returned and graduated.
She moved to Buffalo in 1942 to work for Sylvania Radio. There she met a force in the Buffalo Communist movement, Hattie Lumpkin and, more significantly, her son Frank. They married on Oct. 22, 1949.
She made speeches denouncing Hitler and fascism, was involved in the effort to free the Scottsboro Boys, the case of nine Black teens framed for a rape in 1931. She was first arrested leading a demonstration in front of a New York department store in 1935.
She went to Hunter College in Manhattan, but found "union work was too important and too exciting" to waste time in school. She later returned and graduated.
She moved to Buffalo in 1942 to work for Sylvania Radio. There she met a force in the Buffalo Communist movement, Hattie Lumpkin and, more significantly, her son Frank. They married on Oct. 22, 1949.
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Surprised her folks didn't return to the USSR after the Red Army Bolsheviks won and Lenin took over. Same for her later to return there in the 50's or such. Dem.Soc is fine. Comm. is not.
ReplyDeleteA small number did & most regretted it.
DeleteIt also appears she was brainwashed & believed some total nonsense, such as this line: "it follows that Africa was the birthplace of mathematics and science".
Since there are zero records of anything like that, she fell into the same foolishness the Soviet Union did when it started claiming that various Russians had invented everything of the Industrial Age. It's the same as the bizarre claims about the dozens of people who said they invented the light bulb before Edison. Edison never claimed to have invented the light bulb, he just invented the first one that lasted long enough to be sold commercially!
Joy in the struggle? The older Communists that I encountered during my days as a student radical were joyless, humorless, dour folks, both individually and collectively. There was very little joy, and a great deal of struggle. They were a total turn-off to younger lefties who were my age.
DeleteThink I was in my teens when the Russians claimed to have invented baseball, and were mocked, scorned, and ridiculed. Can you picture a young Vlad Lenin or a young Joey Stalin in pinstripes, and doing a home-run Trotsky around he bases? Whatta joke!
Clark St.
DeleteThe Sinai peninsula of Egypt is often considered part of Africa
This was the location of Sumaria.
The oldest tablets ever discovered with markings indicating mathematical functions were found here.
Look it up it's not a stretch to say that mathematics began in Africa ancient Mesopotamia and Sumaria.
There is no need to split hairs let alone go off on a screed regarding this information.
Human beings invented math in many places at different times and we should celebrate that fact in every way that we can there is no need to be angry
Long time reader
thank you anonymous
DeleteWonder if her folks or her read about the Labor Camps or liked Stalin.
ReplyDeleteMs. Lumpkin was a teenager during the Great Purge. Undoubtedly fully aware of the absolute worst aspects of communism in Soviet Russia.
DeleteThe USCP focused on the rights of workers was against inequity and is against religion.
Being a communist is not the same as being a Stalinist
As I read this piece -- very well done, Neil -- the song "where have all the flowers gone" played in my head. I thought it poetic, in my feeling that as Ms. Lumpkin's generation moves on, we lose so much.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if we are prepared for the fight that lies ahead. Are we strong enough? I don't know the answer, and it makes me look in at my own cowardice and failures.
It will never cease to amaze me how terrified people become of things the moment "communism" is spoken.
Equality is important. Justice is important. Brava Bea. You will be missed. May we carry her memory on for a thousand years and better this world for all, in her name.
Yay, Bea Lumpkin! RIP
ReplyDeleteThank you for this remembrance of a life well lived. A person who not only stood up and marched but worked tirelessly to bouy those in need.
ReplyDeleteThe macro level of her radical communist dogma has proven to be deeply flawed while the micro level of her and others like her work in the trenches is the kind of action I support whole heatedly.
Her example is inspiring and a testament to the importance of the movement of which she was a part. Improving the lives of millions.
My kind of walk the walk lefty.
Franco
"You Gotta Walk It Like You Talk It (Or You'll Lose That Beat)..."
DeleteTitle of a little-known movie by Steely Dan. It crashed and burned.
With all due respect, “Beatrice Lumpkin” would be a great name for a band
ReplyDeleteShe's "my kind of walk the walk lefty' too. I met Bea and briefly talked with her about a half-dozen times. Maybe five feet tall, wearing a hat, always smiling. In 2016, I saw her at an event. I had read "Joy in the Struggle" and we chatted about Gary, Indiana and steel workers.It was primary season, so I asked her who to vote for Sanders or Warren? Bea, with eyes widened, said Bernie! And, like a teacher, said "I thought you said you read my book?"
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with what little I know of Communism. Everything is not determined by class. But class is part of the equation. Where would a believer in racial, gender and labor rights find like-minded people in the USA from the 1930's and on? There were a lot sympathizers and Communists here until the 1950s.
Now that’s a life well lived.
ReplyDeleteCommunists hate free speech and they love a caste system of privilege.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 4:32PM. So...Trump and his MAGA lovers are Communists. I knew it!
DeleteThe number of apparently-educated commentors who have giant holes in basic Russian communist history is surprising. Stalin was not a communist of the original revolution. He was no more communist than Amin, Assad, Franco, Hitler, Papa Doc,Trujillo...pick a dictator, any dictator, including those installed by flag-waving fake "free market" Americans.
ReplyDeleteEarly Christians sharied resources and supportied one another, as described in Acts 2:44-45, where believers "had everything in common" and sold their possessions to meet each other's needs, willingly. Nothing like the political pseudi-Christians in power today.
I'm pleased to know about Ms. Lumpkin.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the commenter knew that Slatin arrived on the scene later. Not the point.
ReplyDeleteClark St. You have a point.
ReplyDelete