Maudelle Shirek

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Maudelle Shirek

Maudelle Shirek is listed as a sponsor[1] of the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library in Oakland California.

Early life

Born 1912 Jefferson, Alabama, granddaughter of slaves, Maudelle V. Miller left her rural Arkansas home for California in the middle of World War II, and before long she was campaigning for fair housing and other civil rights for African Americans.

Maudelle Miller married Brownlee Wolf Shirek, 9 Feb 1964 in Alameda, California. He died 14 Feb 1978 in Santa Clara Co., California. She was his second wife.

Maudelle Shirek became a union organizer and an office manager of the Co-op Credit Union and later helped found two Berkeley senior centers[2].

Recruiting Ron Dellums

Ron Dellums gave up a scholarship to work on a Ph.D at Brandeis University and agreed to run for Berkeley City Council.

He went on to serve 28 years in Congress in a career marked by a steadfast pacifism, leadership in the Congressional Black Caucus and tenure as the first African American to chair the powerful House Armed Services Committee.

Partly at Shirek's suggestion, he had been corralled into a meeting of black leaders in Berkeley seeking a candidate for the council.

He didn't want to run and his name was about to be erased from the list of possibilities on the blackboard after he told the group, "I feel very strongly about things. I don't think politics is ready for me, and I'm not ready for politics." At that moment a woman with "a beautiful gray Afro" who hadn't said much all evening asked Dellums: "Would you run on your own terms?"

"That moment changed my life," said Dellums,"That woman was testing my integrity. "

Dellums couldn't say no and gave a noncommittal answer about political idealism. Shirek told the group to keep his name on the chalk board and that he had her vote. Dellums won the endorsement and the seat[3].

Berkeley City Council

In 1984, the leftist Berkeley Citizens Action party was having its nominating convention. Shirek was on the list of possible candidates but had not shown up as the packed auditorium waited.

The man who was later her aide, Mike Berkowitz, set out on a desperate search and found her cleaning the house of an elderly resident. "Maudelle, you've got to come!" he recalled telling her. "It's the nominating convention!"

"Yes," she replied, "but I've got to finish cleaning these floors."

In 2000 Shirek was elected to her eigth term on the Berkeley City Council, receiving 73.7 percent of the vote, the largest margin of victory of all four council races on the ballot[4].

Radical traveling

Maudelle Shirek has traveled to Africa, Moscow, Prague, Nicaragua and Cuba, where she dined with Fidel Castro.

She was 77 when she joined the first delegation from North America to visit the newly occupied Palestinian territories in protest of Israeli policies there.

"Everybody was 35 to 40 years younger than Maudelle," recalled the trip's organizer, Barbara Lubin, director of the Berkeley-based Middle East Childrens Alliance. "She was the only one who never fell asleep. She was out in front of all of us."

Shirek was also on the front line when she and other members of the delegation were arrested for chaining themselves to the fence of the Pennsylvania factory that made the tear gas used on the Palestinians[5].

Arrested with Angela

In May, 1985, Shirek was arrested with Angela Davis, the Rev. Cecil Williams and 109 others in an anti-apartheid protest at the University of California at Berkeley.

South Africa benefit

On January 17 1986, a benefit concert was held at Oakland's Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, for the National Emergency Fund of the South African Council of Churches.

Dinner Committee Members included Hon. Alan Cranston, Hon. Leo McCarthy, Hon. Barbara Boxer, Hon. Sala Burton, Hon. Ron Dellums (a DSA member), Hon. Don Edwards, Hon. Tom Lantos Hon. George Miller, Jr. Hon. Norman Mineta, Hon. Pete Stark, Hon. Willie Brown, plus Democratic Socialists of America members Julian Bond, Nancy Skinner, Harry Britt, John Henning, Adam Hochschild, Frances Moore Lappe, Stanley Sheinbaum, Communist Party USA affiliates Wilson Riles, Jr., Maudelle Shirek, Al Lannon, and Irving Sarnoff, and radical socialists Julianne Malveaux, Drummond Pike, John George, Peter Yarrow and actor/activist Sidney Poitier.[6]

CoC National Conference endorser

In 1992 Maudelle Shirek, Berkeley City Council endorsed the Committees of Correspondence national conference Conference on Perspectives for Democracy and Socialism in the 90s held at Berkeley California July 17-19.[7]

CoC National Coordinating Committee

The following are listed in order of votes they received as members of the Committees of Correspondence National Coordinating Committee, elected at the Conference on Perspectives for Democracy and Socialism in the 90s held at Berkeley California July 17-19, 1992.:[8]

In 1994 Maudelle Shirek was a member of the National Coordinating Committee of the Committees of Correspondence.[9]

Employed CoC leader

At the time of her death in 1993, Committees of Correspondence leader Kendra Alexander was working as a legislative aide to Berkeley City Councillor Maudelle Shirek[10].

People's Weekly World Banquet 1996

Sponsors of the 1996 Bay area People's Weekly World banquet, at His Lordships, Berkeley Marina, included Oakland City Council members Ignacio de la Fuente, Sheila Jordan and John Russo, Berkeley City Council members Maudelle Shirek, Linda Maio and Dona Spring, San Francisco Supervisors Tom Ammiano and Sue Bierman, Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson, and California State Assemblyman John L. Burton.

Honored were 5 labor leaders - Walter Johnson, Owen Marron, Shirley Ware of SEIU, Abba Ramos of the ILWU and Francisco Martin del Campo of the San Francisco labor Council for Latin American Advancement.[11]

People's Weekly World Banquet 1997

Elected officials attending the the 1997 Bay area People's Weekly World banquet, at His Lordships, Berkeley Marina, included State Senator Barbara Lee Assemblywoman Liz Figueroa, Alemada County Board of Supervisors president Keith Carson and Berkeley vice mayor and City Council member Maudelle Shirek..

Honored were Brian McWilliams, Santa Cruz County Central Labor Council, Amy Dean, South Bay Labor Council, Wilson Riles, Jr. regional director AFSC and Art Rodriguez of the National Labor Community Coalition for Public Works Jobs.[12]

Robeson event

On may 9, 1998, the Communist Party USA's Peoples Weekly World held a centennial festive tribute celebrating the life of Paul Robeson. Speakers and performers included Communist Party vice chair Jarvis Tyner, co-hair , retired ILWU international rep. Abba Ramos, co-chair communist Marilyn Bechtel, Owen Marron, Alameda Central Labor Council, Martin del Campo, San Francisco Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, Berkeley mayor Maudelle Shirek, dancer Jackie Artman, Northern California Young Communist League co-chair Amie Fishman, Joe Johnson, trade unionist and personal friend of Robeson, poet Dr. Tolbert J. Small, and singers Anthony J. Smith and David Winters (American Federation of Musicians).

Among the events more than 100 co-sponsors were Senate president Pro Tem John L. Burton and Oakland mayor Elihu Harris.[13]

Honored at Communist Party fund raiser

Peoples Weekly World, September 11, 1999

In September 1999, five people were honored at a Communist Party USA fund raising event in Berkeley.[14]

2002 PWW banquet

In a spirited tribute, the Northern California People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo banquet Oct. 13 honored “the heroes and heroines of the struggle against corporate greed,” and called for a big turnout against Republican “Bush-clones” in the Nov. 5 election. The banquet raised $8,000 for the PWW fund drive.

In her opening, Berkeley Vice Mayor Maudelle Shirek spoke of the growing movements in solidarity with West Coast port workers and against war. “So there is hope,” she said, “and a new movement that we must help nurture and grow.”

That movement includes the bloc in Congress that voted against the Bush war resolution, and those who supported Rep. Barbara Lee’s (D-Calif.) peace resolution.

The banquet honored the Coalition for Workers Rights , Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Locals 2 and 2850, Sacramento Living Wage Campaign and Father Bill O’Donnell, known as “labor’s priest.” Each received certificates from Rep. Lee, in whose district the event took place, and from Wilma Chan, majority leader in the California Assembly, as well as from PWW/Nuestro Mundo. Elliott Kenin and the “Spirit of ’29” traditional jazz band and singer/songwriter Anthony J. Smith added to the upbeat spirit.[15]

References

Template:Reflist Template:Endorsers of the Conference on Perspectives for Democracy and Socialism in the 90s

  1. ↑ http://www.marxistlibr.org/sponsors.html
  2. ↑ http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Maudelle-Shirek-Idealist-Berkeley.htm
  3. ↑ http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Maudelle-Shirek-Idealist-Berkeley.htm
  4. ↑ http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Maudelle-Shirek-Idealist-Berkeley.htm
  5. ↑ http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Maudelle-Shirek-Idealist-Berkeley.htm
  6. ↑ EBONY & IVORY invite you to attend a dinner benefit for theNational Emergency Fund of the South African Council of Churches
  7. ↑ CCDS Background
  8. ↑ Proceedings of the Committees of Correspondence Conference: Perspectives for Democracy and Socialism in the '90s booklet, printed by CoC in NY, Sept. 1992 (Price: $4)
  9. ↑ CoC National committee meeting, January 7-9, 1994, New York minutes
  10. ↑ Black Liberation in Conservative America (M. Marable) page 66
  11. ↑ PWW, Sep. 21 1996 page 2
  12. ↑ PWW, Dec.6 1997 page 2
  13. ↑ PWW Tribute celebrates Robeson's impact today, May 23, 1998
  14. ↑ Peoples Weekly World, September 11, 1999
  15. ↑ , N. Calif. PWW call: Unity against Bush clones, by: Marilyn Bechtel October 25 2002
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