https://themilitant.com/2018/12/22/celebrate-nan-baileys-five-decades-building-swp/
Celebrate Nan Bailey’s five decades building SWP
By Norton Sandler
Vol. 83/No. 1
January 7, 2019
LOS ANGELES — Nan Bailey, 66, a leader and cadre of the Socialist
Workers Party for 50 years, died here Dec. 12 after a 15-year battle
with chronic lung disease. A meeting to celebrate her contributions to
building the SWP will be held in Los Angeles Dec. 30.
Bailey helped lead the party’s work in the industrial trade unions, in
the struggle for Black liberation, and in building party branches in a
number of cities. She served 18 years on the SWP’s National Committee,
the leading body of the party.
In the early 1980s Bailey helped lead the party’s participation in the
National Black Independent Political Party. NBIPP was launched in
Philadelphia in November 1980 at a convention attended by 1,500 people,
with the goal of establishing a political party independent of the
Democrats and Republicans, the capitalist rulers’ two main parties.
“The convention offered a glimpse of the extent to which the capitalist
system has exposed itself in the eyes of millions of Black people. Many
pointed to capitalism as the root of the racist oppression and economic
exploitation of Blacks,” Bailey wrote in a Dec. 12, 1980, Militant
article on the founding convention.
The National Black Independent Political Party adopted a far-reaching
charter to fight national oppression and capitalist exploitation. It
dissolved a few years later as many in its leadership retreated from the
founding program and the independent course fought for by SWP members,
instead trying to steer members into the Democratic Party.
In the late 1980s Bailey was working as a meatpacker in Des Moines,
Iowa, when Mark Curtis, a fellow meatpacker and member of the SWP, was
framed up on rape charges as he helped to lead a fight against
government attacks on immigrant co-workers. She joined many in the area
and across the country in waging a vigorous defense of Curtis that won
widespread support.
Celebrate the life of Nan BaileyBailey was the organizer of the party’s
trade union committee in the late 1990s and a leader of its fraction in
the International Association of Machinists. She worked in aerospace
plants, in meatpacking plants, and as a sewer and a presser in garment
and textile factories.
Bailey ran for public office as an SWP candidate numerous times.
In 1981, she attended the party’s leadership school for an intensive
six-month study of the writings of Marx and Engels.
In 1970, as a student at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island,
Bailey joined the Young Socialist Alliance, the youth organization in
political agreement with the SWP. She was recruited by the YSA’s
leadership role in the fight against Washington’s imperialist war in
Vietnam. She was a leader of the YSA for many years afterward. She
joined the Socialist Workers Party after leaving Brown.
In early 1972, she volunteered in the offices of the Women’s National
Abortion Action Coalition in Washington, D.C., that was coordinating
protests demanding a woman’s right to choose an abortion.
During the battle to desegregate the Boston schools in the mid-1970s
Bailey spoke across the country winning support for the fight to
overturn segregation in Boston’s schools, where Black youth were facing
assaults by racist mobs.
Bailey carried out many important SWP leadership assignments over the
decades. She served as part of the secretariat for SWP National
Secretary Jack Barnes. She was a volunteer staff writer for the
Militant, and also did a stint in the party’s print shop.
She was a member of SWP branches in Washington, D.C.; Detroit; New York;
Newark, New Jersey; Des Moines; Seattle; and Los Angeles.
The Militant will carry a full report of the Dec. 30 meeting to
celebrate Bailey’s political life.
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •‘Yellow vest’ protests force gov’t concessions
•New Year’s greetings to our readers behind bars!
•Join SWP in taking books, ‘Militant’ to workers doors
•‘We are human beings, not robots!’ Amazon workers protest conditions
•Turkish rulers threaten to attack Kurds seeking autonomy in Syria
•Rail bosses push crew cuts, longer trains, risk lives in drive for profit
Feature Articles •‘What does Cuba teach? That revolution is possible’
Also In This Issue •Hungary protests oppose law letting bosses force
overtime
•Workers donate ‘blood money’ bribes to build SWP
•Celebrate Nan Bailey’s five decades building SWP
•UK out of EU is best terrain for workers’ struggles there
•Join fight against prison censorship of ‘Militant’!
On the Picket Line •Mental health clinicians strike across California
•United flight attendants protest crew size cuts, grueling schedules
•Oakland teachers rally for smaller class sizes, higher wages
•Walmart worker hits bosses’ abuses over intercom
Books of the Month •Workers take political power or face ‘Iron Heel’ of
capitalist rule
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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