An abbreviated version of this article was posted on Portside on June 19: Suzanne Crowell — Presente!
FOR SUZANNE CROWELL'S MANY FRIENDS, her passing on June 15 in Maine at age 79 came as a shock, even though we were aware her death from cancer was imminent. Beyond a personal loss, it is a loss for our movement, for Suzanne remained active and engaged to the end of her days. Her legacy is important to remember today because when so many of the gains made during the 1960s and 70s are on the chopping block, when too little of the history of the movement of that era is known or understood.
For members of Metro DC DSA her legacy is particularly important as she played a key role in our formative years, but her unique qualities have value for wider circles. Perhaps it is worthwhile to begin with one lesson — Suzanne she did not advertise her past, retell “war stories” of previous engagements, or put herself in the center of every story. I suspect that virtually all who knew her will learn something of her history (I did when putting this tribute together). By contrast, what she did was imbibe what she learned through experience, and incorporate that into her politics, in her approach to others, her approach to life.
A lifelong activist, Suzanne was a member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and one of a handful of initial members of Friends of SNCC, a northern support group of the militant direct action civil rights organization, while a student at Barnard in the mid-1960s. Acting on her convictions, she took part in SNCC's Mississippi Freedom Summer Project in 1964 and in the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965.
After graduation, Suzanne came south in 1967 to work as the Appalachian correspondent for the Southern Patriot, the monthly publication of the Southern Conference Educational Fund. Almost immediately she was to play an important role in the campaign to free SCEF staff members Carl and Anne Braden and Al and Margaret McSurely, and Appalachian Volunteer Joe Mulloy. The McSurelys and Mulloy were attempting to organize in Appalachia. They were targeted by the Kentucky Un-American Activities Committee, charged under the state’s sedition statute and jailed after raids on their homes. Suzanne was responsible for organizing press coverage of the case, which drew nationwide attention. The sedition statute was later ruled unconstitutional.
Suzanne lived in Whitesburg, Kentucky, during her time at SCEF. She filed stories on coalfield struggles and wrote The Appalachian People’s History Book, which brought light to an area long ignored or poorly represented.
She moved to Washington, DC in the late 1960s when Home rule was only recently won and Marion Barry was elected Mayor. Suzanne was a fixture in local politics for decades – and was particularly engaged in work to preserve rent control and affordable housing as well as local work in solidarity with South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement. A member of AFSCME, Suzanne was an active unionist and was elected president of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) DC chapter for several years. She was active in the Metro Labor Council [DC] and, after retiring, in the Maine AFL-CIO.
Among the institutions she brought her formidable writing, editing and research skills to was the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, editing its publication, The Civil Right Digest, in the early 1970s. Other Commission reports Suzanne edited included “A Civil Rights Agenda for the 1980s”, “Sex Discrimination and Title VII in Virginia”, and (as co-editor) the “American Indian Civil Rights Handbook”. Flowing out of that work, she supported efforts by Native American prisoners to have the right to practice their religion while incarcerated, including space for sweat lodges.
Subsequently, Suzanne worked in the DC Ombudsman Office and served as the public affairs officer at the Office of Peoples Counsel. In the 1990s she worked in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), in the office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. Later, she worked for the National Council of Jewish Women, a social justice organization, as a writer and researcher.
Suzanne was a member of the Democratic Socialists Organizing Committee and its successor organization, Democratic Socialists of America. She served as part of Metro DC DSA's local leadership in different capacities throughout the 1980s and 90s. She was elected to DSA’s National Executive Committee, participated in the work of national DSA's labor and anti-racism commissions and was on the editorial board of Democratic Left.
Suzanne loved horses and when she relocated to southern Maine she bought a small farm. In 2006 she was approached by JoAnna Mendl Shaw, founder of The Equus Projects, who created choreography that brought together the grace and athleticism of horses and dancers. Shaw was seeking a facility to rehearse a commissioned work for The Bates Dance Festival. The dancers spent hours on Suzanne’s farm with the horses, then in 2008 created a performance work. In 2011, UnStable Landscape was presented at Suzanne’s farm where audiences of over 250 people attended each of two performances. Suzanne’s involvement continued and she served on the Boards of both the Bates Dance Festival and The Equus Projects.
Throughout her life, Suzanne never wavered in her commitment to the struggle against racism, in her uncompromising commitment to the labor movement, to the struggle for peace and for a better world. She was a good friend and will be greatly missed by all who knew her.
I met Suzanne soon after joining DSA in 1983 and soon came to respect her commitment and learn from how she approached the world. Politically, she helped set the direction for the work for DSA in DC by always reminding us of the need to be rooted in the local community, which in Washington meant the struggle of the black community against racism in all the forms it takes. It also meant centering our work in the labor movement for it is the vehicle through which working people express themselves. Behind that way of approaching activism lay a critically important truth that Suzanne imparted – one must be principled (and, agree or disagree with her, Suzanne never betrayed her convictions) but be alive and aware of people in their complexity, in their contradictions.
But beyond the political, I valued Suzanne as a friend. She was a private person and had a reserve that, upon an initial impression, could seem be misinterpreted as aloofness. But nothing could be further from the truth, for once you gained her trust, she would open up and her warmth, her sense of humor, would come through. Moreover, Suzanne was deeply loyal to her friends, something I always knew about her, saw and appreciated early on – and something I experienced after my arrest when she (along with other friends in our DSA branch and elsewhere) stood with me with support and a presence that exemplified who she was. One can say that he approach to the world, her approach to social justice, her approach to her friends reflected the same values. And that is, truly, what we all strive for. Suzanne will be missed.
For more information on Suzanne’s background and how to make a contribution in Suzanne’s memory, visit her Obituary on Funeral Alternatives.
