Abraham Isserman - Memorial Service 1988
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The Abraham Isserman - Memorial Service 1988
About the Service
A longtime identified Communist Party USA member and attorney, Abraham Isserman died on April 22, 1988. A memorial service was scheduled for him on November 17, 1988, at the Martin Luther King Center of District 1199, 310 West 43rd St, NYC.[1]
An article advertising the event which was published the Nov. 15 People's Daily World made the following comments:[1]
- "The late Abe Isserman, an attorney who served a prison term and was disbarred for 13 years for his legal defense of the constitutional rights of Communists in the 1949 Smith Act trial, will be honored at a memorial meeting this Thursday, Nov. 17. Rep. George Crockett (D-MI), who also was a fellow defense attorney and who was also jailed, will be the keynote speaker. Isserman died on April. 22.
- The legal prosecution of Communist Party leaders, was one of the opening shots of the McCarthy era in the early years of the cold war. It led to hundreds of Communists and other progressives being sent to prison on various trumped-up charges, and thousands of others hounded out of their jobs and professions. Inevitably, it resulted in the silencing of millions of people throughout the country through fear of economic and political reprisals for their views.
- Isserman, who was admitted to the bar in 1923, was a prominent labor and civil rights attorney in New Jersey for more than two decades, beginning with the Paterson silk strike of 1926. He was attorney for the N.J. State Federation of Labor, a number of union councils, and unions across the country.
- He was also attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union and the Consumers Union. A member of the ACLU National Board from 1935 to 1939, he resigned in 1939 in protest at the expulsion of founding member, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
- He also represented the Jehovahs Witnesses in their fight against compulsory allegiance to the American flag, later upheld by the Supreme Court."
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was a longtime CPUSA leader. The Consumers Union was once dominated by the CPUSA for a short period of time.
Sponsors
The following individuals and organizations sponsored the event. They included the "legal heart" of the CPUSA and its sympathizers/fronts:[1]
- John Abt - id. CPUSA member, id. Soviet spy, NLG leader, and the CPUSA's attorney
- Bella Abzug - former member of congress (D-NY), key member and possible founder of Women Strike for Peace, NLG member and one of their delegates to the Soviet front, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers in Czechoslovakia in 1947. Had one of the longest records of supporting CPUSA fronts and causes of any member of congress. She was widely believed to have been a secret member of the CPUSA.[2]
- Leonard Boudin - id. CPUSA member, father of Weather Underground Organization leader and terrorist, Kathie Boudin
- Haywood Burns - marxist leader of the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the late husband of WUO member/above ground support group Prairie Fire Organizing Committee PFOC Jennifer Dohrn, in-law of her sister, WUO terrorist leader Bernadine Dohrn, and friend of Communist Cuba through one of their legal fronts, AAJ
- Sidney E. Cohn
- Eugene Cotton
- Rep. George Crockett, Jr. (D-MI), jailed as a Communist Party lawyer for misconduct in the Rosenberg Case. (see National Committee to Secure Justice for the Rosenbergs and Morton Sobell for more information)
- Frank Donner - longtime id. CPUSA member and one of their top leaders in the Anti-Intelligence Lobby
- Debra Evenson
- Ernest Goodman - another NLG leader and longtime CPUSA sympathizer
- Gilbert Green - jailed CPUSA leader
- Maurice Isserman - another longtime CPUSA supporter, former member turned historian
- Arthur Kinoy - one of the CPUSA's top marxist attorney/supporter, esp. in the Rosenberg Case, and leader of the failed marxist party, National Coalition for Independent Political Action; Rutgers University Law School
- Paul O'Dwyer - radical, marxist sympathizer, pro-IRA activist, and former local leader in the New York City NLG
- Marshall Perlin - another top CPUSA sympathizer/attorney
- Martin Popper - id. CPUSA member and attorney
- Victor Rabinowitz - id. CPUSA member, attorney, and registered agent for Castro's Cuba (father and relative of many CPUSA members named Rabinowitz)
- Paul Schacter
- David Scriber - id. CPUSA member, NLG member
- Morton Stavis - id. CPUSA member, member of the law firm of Kunstler, Kinoy, Stavis and Weiss
- National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee NECLC - a congressionally id. CPUSA front and key leader in the Anti-Intelligence Lobby
- National Lawyers Guild - officially cited as the "legal bulwark of the Communist Party", and even in the 1980's was led by hardcore communists and marxists, though not necessarily members of the CPUSA, but from whom they got their training and inspiration.
References
- ↑ Jump up to: 1.0 1.1 1.2 Article in the People's Daily World, November 15, 1988, page 10-A.
- ↑ Personal communication from Max Friedman, research journalist, who spoke to one of her friends who gave an eulogy at her memorial service, and she said that she believed Abzug was a CPUSA member. Government documents supporting this possibility have not been made public and researchers have not been able to find identified documents in the National Archives so far.