Communist Party of Eastern Pennsylvania & Delaware

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The Communist Party of Eastern Pennsylvania & Delaware is a part of the Communist Party USA and is also known as the Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware Communist Party.

Since circa 2011, it has been affiliated to the Philadelphia Social Science Forum.

Personnel

Leadership

On June 1, 1975, the following were elected to the District Committee of the Pennsylvania Communist Party at the Party's District Convention:[1]

Those marked with an apostrophe were also members of the District Board

  • Political Affairs, April 1979, Page 21, Volume LVII, No. 4, "Rizzo Bites the Dust: Unity Defeats Racism" by:
  • Elsie Dickerson - member, District Committee, Eastern Pennsylvania-Delaware Communist Party
  • Beth Edelman - District Committee - same
  • Ronnie Henry - District Committee - same

Members & Supporters

In September 2006 the Peoples Weekly World listed several members, or supporters of the Pennsylvania Communist Party:[2]

Happy 95th Birthday Sarah Milgram

Charter Member Communist Party USA.

The following was a list of names published in People's Weekly World celebrating Milgram's 95th Birthday in 1996.[3]

May Day Cinco de Mayo Greetings

1996

The following May Day greeting was included in the Special May Day 1966 Supplement of the People's Weekly World.[4]

"May Day Greetings to the People's Weekly World - beloved working class paper bringing clarity and inspiration in the struggle to defeat the "Contract" and deliver a blow to reaction in 1996" - Convention Delegates and Friends of the Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware District CPUSA, Eastern Pennsylvania District CPUSA, Delaware District CPUSA

The following put their names to the greeting:

(In memory of)

2000

In 2000 the following sent May Day and Cinco de Mayo Greetings:[5]

2002

In 2002 the following sent May Day and Cinco de Mayo Greetings:[6]

2004

The following sent May Day greetings in the People's Weekly World of May 1-7 2004 May Day Supplement page F.

Annual PWW banquets

1999

The Communist Party of Eastern Pennsylvania & Delaware's 1990 annual Peoples Weekly World banquet honored Jim Moran, director of Philadelphia Area Project for Occupational Safety and Health, and Debbie Bell, local Party chairperson and treasurer of the Black Radical Congress. Royce Adams served as MC, while Eliott Kenin sang and Amina Baraka recited poetry.

Adams read out a tribute to Bell from Julian Bond of the NAACP - he said Bell was "part of a band of brothers and sisters who dared risk life and limb to make American democracy live up to its promise....you could not selected a finer life to celebrate or a finer person to honor."[7]

2003

Philadelphia’s annual People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo banquet took place on Nov. 4. Those in attendance heard Toronto trade union health care activist Doug Allan describe the struggles of the Canadian people in their fight to keep universal health care.

Sylvia Metzler, a nurse and peace activist, was honored for her leadership in the Philadelphia Area Committee to Defend Health Care, which recently led a successful campaign to pass a ballot initiative calling for universal health care. The same day, Philadelphia voters approved a change in the City Charter that requires the Department of Health to draw up a plan for universal health care for all Philadelphians. Also honored was Nate Walton, a biomedical technician at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. A member of the CPUSA, he has been a longtime fighter for civil rights and peace.

While chairing the program, Dennis Barneby compared the articles in the local newspaper to those in the PWW.

“Where else can you read about what’s really going on throughout this country and the world?” asked Barnebey. [8]

2005

Dec. 4 2005, readers in Philadelphia held an informative and exciting banquet there, raising $3,000 for the World Fund Drive. The banquet honored two outstanding activists, Diane Mohney and Al Zappala.

Mohney is a school nurse who serves as community co-chair of Philadelphia Jobs with Justice and is the recording secretary of both the Philadelphia Coalition of Labor Union Women and the Philadelphia Area Committee to Defend Health Care.

Zappala has been a peace and social justice activist since the 1960s. His son, Sherwood Baker, was a Pennsylvania National Guardsman killed in Iraq in 2004. Al Zappala spent four days in Crawford, Texas, protesting the war and was part of the Bring The Troops Home Now Tour. Zappala shared his experiences and described some of the effects of the war on the troops and their families. [9]

2007

At Philadelphia’s festive PWW awards dinner Dec. 9, 80 people saluted local activists.

John Braxton was saluted for his work with Jobs with Justice and U.S. Labor Against the War. Philadelphia’s Central Labor Council was one of the first in the country to pass a resolution against the Iraq war, and Braxton was instrumental in its passage. The labor council took out a full-page ad honoring him in the dinner’s program book.

Also honored were Miriam Crawford, a veteran activist with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and Jimmie Wayne Moore, a longtime promoter of the PWW in his church and community and on local radio talk shows.

Keynote speaker Adam Tenney, Young Communist League USA education director, linked the Iraq war to the “terrible violence” that has recently engulfed Philadelphia. The billions of dollars being spent on the war, he said, could fund better education, college tuition, more recreation and more jobs for young people, all of which would raise living standards and result in a drop in crime. [10]

Legacy of Harriet Fahey and Nelson Brown

In 2004, Pennsylvania activists placed a tribute in the People's Weekly World , January 31, page 16, honoring the lives of People's Weekly World "builders" Harriet Fahey and Nelson Brown.

Signatories were;

District work, 2014

In 2014, the Eastern Pennsylvania district has been involved in campaigns to raise the minimum wage and to support public education in Philadelphia and throughout the state. Some of our members are active in building the climate march and in working on the midterm election. We are hopeful that the broad developing coalition can change who the Governor is in November. Some of our members are working with their unions; others are active with Working America and involved in the campaign to defeat Tom Corbett and elect Democrat Tom Wolf.

We sponsor public forums such as one with Professor Walter T. Howard of Bloomsburg University speaking on the history of the struggle for the right to vote and against voter suppression. Another presented CP Political Action Chair Joelle Fishman on the topic "Women Rising: the key to defeating the ultra Right in 2014". Our forums are presented under the auspices of the Philadelphia Social Science Forum which is a project of the EPA District and the Friends of peoplesworld.org.

On September 19 we will welcome newly elected National Chair John Bachtell as our speaker. John will speak on "What's at stake in the November elections."[11]

External Links

References

  1. ↑ New District Leadership -- Elected at District Convention, June 1, 1975, Sandy Patrinos Files, Box 1, Tamiment Library, Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University
  2. ↑ We salute the labor movement!, People's World, September 1, 2006
  3. ↑ People's Weekly World, 29 June 1996
  4. ↑ Special May Day 1966 Supplement of the People's Weekly World, P. K
  5. ↑ People's Weekly World, May 6, 2000,
  6. ↑ People's Weekly World, May 4, 2002, Page 17
  7. ↑ PWW October 30, 1999, page 2
  8. ↑ PW Raising spirits and funds from coast to coast, December 19 2003
  9. ↑ Fundraisers spread peace, joy and thanks Print Email to a Friend by: Rosita JOHNSON december 16 2005
  10. ↑ http://www.peoplesworld.org/saluting-the-people-s-struggle-and-the-pww/ PW, Saluting the peoples struggle and the PWW by: Dan Margolis December 21 2007]
  11. ↑ Communist Party USA in action: What we do by: Ben Sears September 1 2014
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