Freedom Socialist • Vol. 27, No. 6 • December 2006-January 2007

Gloria Martin remembered

Gloria Martin.

“Socialist feminism — right on! I believe in the revolutionary potential and talent of working women, militant women of color, lesbian radicals, discriminated-against women professionals, angry young women, rebellious housewives, harassed welfare mothers, and wise elderly women.” So said Gloria Martin, a founder of Radical Women and organizer for the Freedom Socialist Party, in 1978.

Together with her comrade Clara Fraser, Gloria's pioneering fusion of female liberation and socialism transformed the landscape of the movements for social change. She mentored generations of young women, nurturing them to blossom into vibrant radical leaders. It is just over ten years now since Gloria died, and she is still sorely missed. Yet her memory is very much alive in the theories she developed, in the organizations she built, in the activism of all those she taught and befriended.

Born in 1916 in Missouri, Gloria joined the Communist Party's youth affiliate, the Young Communist League, in the 1930s, and campaigned for desegregation in St. Louis. She left the league during World War II, disgusted with its embedded sexism and unprincipled Stalinist politics. But she never stopped fighting racism and injustice.

In 1950, she moved to Seattle, where she quickly immersed herself in battles for civil rights and civil liberties. Gloria had an especially strong passion for challenging the second-class status of her own sex, and in the 1960s she joined with Black women to agitate for welfare rights, protest police brutality, and campaign for legalized abortion. She also organized the first union for anti-poverty workers.

A mother of eight, Gloria supported her family with numerous low-paying jobs such as cleaning and chicken-plucking. For her the crusade against poverty was not an abstract campaign for the benefit of “others.” It was a fight for survival against a brutal economic system.
In 1966, she taught a class on Women in Society at Seattle's Free University that brought together activists from the socialist “old Left,” youth-oriented New Left, and the civil rights and anti-war movements. Tired of being told by men in the movements to wait until some ethereal later date to address female inequality, the participants in the class launched Radical Women with Gloria and Clara to learn and pass on skills and theory and to develop themselves and other women as leaders.

Accusations flew that RW's multi-issue feminist program was dividing the working class. In her usual direct way, the irrepressible Gloria replied that capitalism created that division — “not my poor enslaved sex that to this day gets blamed for everything from original sin to robbing men of their manhood! And we uppity women who will no longer take this chauvinist shit from workers and radicals are showing both how to seal the fissure, not deepen it.”

As FSP organizer in the 1970s and RW organizer in the 1990s, Gloria expressed her passion for teaching young people. She freely shared her knowledge of literature, art, and culture. Meetings were used as opportunities to uncover and celebrate the hidden history of workingclass heroines and heroes, and to inspire members and friends to see their own potential for accomplishment.

Gloria saw individual people, with all our talents and neuroses, as the human material for creating change. She was demanding. Armed with a strong cup of Folgers coffee and a pack of cigarettes, she patiently and not so patiently explained how to study, analyze, problem-solve, act, and critique. She showed how to be courageous, principled, and calm under fire.

An inspiring role model, Gloria organized to the very end of her life, continuing to train new leaders — including this writer. She had confidence in the next generation to become fighters, dreamers, and creators. It was an optimism born of her lifelong radicalism. In her words, “Socialist revolution, the sooner the better!”

—Anne Slater