Ricky Eisenberg

Ricky Eisenberg

Template:TOCnestleft Eric “Ricky” Eisenberg was a New York activist. He died in February 2017.

Background

A red diaper baby, was born in 1943 into a class-conscious working-class Jewish family. From the start, Ricky displayed a passion for art, music, literature, and social justice. At the High School of Music and Art, and later at the City College, he pursued printmaking, folk music, and creative writing, but committed himself to the working-class movement.

In high school, he organized protests against mandatory civil defense drills and for banning nuclear weapons. In college, he became a leader of the City College Marxist Discussion Group, which helped wake students at the historic campus from the stupor of McCarthyism through vibrant conversations and political engagement.

Ricky was always ready to put his body on the line for his beliefs. His first of several arrests occurred during college at a sit-in at the World’s Fair site in Queens to demand construction jobs for minority workers. With the founding of the Du Bois Clubs, Ricky assumed a leadership role at the City College campus and later helped establish a club on the Lower East Side, engaging neighborhood youth in jobs training efforts with organizations like Mobilization for Youth.

As he worked weekends with Lower East Side youth, Ricky spent his weekdays as an autoworker and union activist at the Ford plant at Mahwah, N.J. When his plant closed, he became a union carpenter utilizing the considerable technical skills passed on to him by his dad, Al, to frame new construction, and his considerable organizing skills to work for a more democratic and racially inclusive carpenters’ union.

Needing to support his growing family, in the late 1970s, Ricky started a cabinetmaking business in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. With other woodworkers, Ricky rehabilitated an old factory, establishing a non-profit building for woodworking shops and a vibrant apprenticeship program for youth. Ricky also built a house for his and his wife Sarah’s family in the Catskills.

During college, Ricky had established friendships with other activists that would last a lifetime. Living with close friends in a predominately Puerto Rican community in the East Bronx, Ricky taught himself Spanish and in sort order was organizing in English and Spanish alike. One of his closest friends from those years, Dennis Mora, along with James Johnson and David Samos, became a member of the Fort Hood Three, the first draftees who refused to accept the order to fight in America’s “illegal, unjust and immoral” war in Vietnam.

The Eisenberg and Mora families became very close. Ricky and his family joined Dennis’s sister Grace Mora and the Moras in working with progressive organizations—including the Du Bois Clubs, the Communist Party USA, the War Resister’s League, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and others—to campaign for freedom for the Fort Hood Three and justice for other GIs resisting America’s imperialist war in Southeast Asia. The Mora family had deep roots in the movement against Francisco Franco’s fascist Spain, the Puerto Rican liberation movement, and Hispanic progressive movements in Harlem and The Bronx. The Eisenberg family and their close friends had deep roots in the progressive working class Jewish union movement and the anti-fascist battles, both in Spain, where Ricky’s father-in-law, Ken Doolittle, and closest family friend, Ralph Fasanella, served, and in Europe and Africa during World War II, where Ricky’s father, Alex Eisenberg, and uncle, Hesh Eisenberg, both fought.

Ricky had a powerful baritone voice and loved to sing blues and folk tunes and play acoustic guitar. When time allowed, he would perform at clubs, often with his lifelong buddy Richard Jaccoma and, later, his daughter, Julietta Eisenberg. Ricky was part of Big Road Blues, a traditional blues group he founded with friends, Alan Podber and Myriam Valle. With Big Road, Ricky organized world music concerts at Winston Unity Center in the Chelsea neighborhood which had a real following and helped showcase new artists.

Ricky was also a longtime member of the New York Labor Chorus and traveled with them to perform in Sweden, Wales, and Cuba, as well as to local organizing sites and marches, where protest songs kept spirits strong.

Ricky gave of his artistic and organizing talents unstintingly, always ready to speak and sing where his voice would move people to think, feel, and act. He was particularly interested in the movement of low-wage workers, authoring a pamphlet on the Fight for $15 in English and Spanish that was published by the New York District of the Communist Party and circulated around the country.

The New York CP initiated a “We’re Not Going Back” Black history celebration in February 2015 at the Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building in Harlem. There, Ricky made a moving speech on why white workers must fight racism. It was a personal account of his part in a united multi-racial struggle in the carpenters’ union. The Harlem crowd gave him a rousing applause.

Later that year, Ricky was honored by the NY Friends of the People’s World with a “Lifetime Achievement Award.” Several hundred gathered at the Winston Unity Hall to honor Ricky and others. At the event, Roque Ristorucci, a retired teacher and longtime friend of Ricky’s from the Du Bois days on the Lower East Side, delivered a beautiful introductory salute. Ricky took that occasion to speak on the need today for a robust Communist Party.

On Feb. 3, 2017, Ricky Eisenberg succumbed to the effects of a long and difficult illness, surrounded by family and friends who offered his favorite songs to help him pass.

He was a loving husband to Sarah Doolittle and a dedicated father of two daughters, Julietta Eisenberg and Anna Eisenberg, and grandfather to Jackson Spence and Grace Spence. To his sister, Nora Eisenberg, and niece Katie Halper.

Communist Party reformer

In 1991 Ricky Eisenberg, New York , was one of several hundred Communist Party USA members to sign the a paper "An initiative to Unite and Renew the Party"-most signatories left the Party after the December 1991 conference to found Committees of Correspondence.

2014 Better World Awards banquet

The Friends of the People's World hosted its yearly fundraiser Dec. 8, 2014, the Better World Awards.

Hearty salutes to striking fast food workers and the tens of thousands protesting the killing of Michael Brown and Eric Garner paid by Jarvis Tyner district chair of the New York Communist Party, and others quickly warmed the crowd as the program honoring Cormanita Mahr, Vice President of United Healthcare Workers East (SEIU 1199), Zephyr Teachout a candidate for governor of NY, Reverend Danilo Lachapel, director of Give Them to Eat Ministry and New York CP labor leader Bill Davis, got underway.

Ricky Eisenberg, longtime peoples troubadour led participants in songs of struggle while participates enjoyed a variety of delicious entrees prepared by the food committee.

Winston Unity Center

The Communist Party USA will reach its centennial anniversary in 2019, but comrades and friends in New York got a head start in 2015. A program featuring song, poetry and a dramatic presentation at its offices on 23rd Street drew a diverse and engaged crowd of supporters.

The New York District marked the occasion by naming the office the Winston Unity Center in honor of the Party's late National Chair Henry Winston. Current New York State Chair Jarvis Tyner emphasized in his remarks the importance of Winston's lifetime contributions and work for the Party and for the country generally.

The program included musical presentations by guitarist/vocalists David Laibman and Ricky Eisenberg, poetry by Chris Butters, presentations by Vinie Burrows and fast food activist Rynetha Benjnet, a dramatic reading of a 1949 speech of NY Communist City Council member Vito Marcantonio, as well as the smooth sounds of DJ Poliarity.

The day had additional significance due the presence a distinguished international guest, Mujahidul Islam Salim, the President of the Communist Party of Bangladesh.

Better World Awards

New York Friends of the People's World Newspaper in Honoring the Contributions of Outstanding New Yorkers at our Annual Awards Luncheon Celebration, November 7 2015.

This years theme is "The Challenge of 2016: Forging the Unity of the 99%"

Lifetime Achievement Honorees:

Amina Baraka - Renowned poet, singer and legendary activist and leader of the Black Arts movement & Ricky Eisenberg - Lifelong trade unionist and leader of the Communist Party of New York (CPUSA). Author of "Fast Food Workers on the Cutting Edge"

Better World Honorees:

• Gwen Carr - President of the Garnerway Foundation;
• Ava Farkas - Executive Director of the Metropolitan Council on Housing;
• Jose Sanchez - Worker/Organizer with Fast Food Forward

References

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