Clara Fraser
Encyclopedia
Clara Fraser was a feminist and socialist political organizer, who co-founded and led the Freedom Socialist Party
and Radical Women
.
. Her father, Samuel Goodman, was a Teamster
. Her mother, Emma Goodman, was a garment worker and later a Business Agent of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
. Fraser joined the Socialist Party
’s youth group in junior high school.
By 1945, after graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles
with a degree in literature and education, Fraser was a recruit to the ideas of Leon Trotsky
, whose campaign against Stalinism
had gained adherents worldwide. She joined the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party
(SWP) that year. In 1946, she moved to the Pacific Northwest
to help build the SWP's Seattle branch.
As an assembly line electrician, Fraser joined the Boeing
strike of 1948. When the union was slapped with an anti-picketing injunction, she put together a mothers' brigade to walk the line with baby strollers. After the strike, Boeing fired and blacklist
ed Fraser, and the FBI pursued her for a decade.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Fraser stayed active in the labor arena, worked to end segregation
, advocated for women, and opposed the Vietnam War
. She worked with her then-husband, Richard Fraser, in developing Revolutionary Integration, which explains the interdependence of the struggles for socialism and African American
freedom and argues the key importance of black leadership to the U.S. working class
.
The SWP, however, was supporting the Nation of Islam
. The Seattle local conducted a long campaign to try to win the national party to its perspective. A clampdown on internal party democracy
brought this effort to a dead end. Fraser co-authored the branch’s critique of the SWP’s political and organizational degeneration in a series of documents that have been re-published under the title Crisis and Leadership (Seattle: Red Letter Press, 2000).
, founded on a program emphasizing the leadership role of the underprivileged in achieving progress for all of humanity.
The new party faced an immediate test of its feminism, when Fraser sought a divorce from her second husband, Richard Fraser, another FSP leader. He attempted to deprive her of custody rights by depicting her in court as an unfit mother because of her political activism. Fraser won the battle in court and with the party majority as well. (Victory for Socialist Feminism: Organizer's Report to the 1969 Freedom Socialist Party Conference [Seattle: Freedom Socialist Party Publications, 1976].)
In 1967, Fraser formed Radical Women (RW), along with Gloria Martin and young women of the New Left
. RW's ambition was to teach women leadership and theoretical skills and class consciousness.
Fraser and her FSP and RW cohorts coalesced with anti-poverty
organizers, mostly black women, to initiate the abortion rights movement in Washington. They supported Native American
fishing rights, Chicano
and Indian occupations of government land and buildings, and Asian American
demands for low-income housing. They aided draft
resisters, fought for child care, coordinated some of Seattle's earliest gay
and lesbian
pride marches, achieved city ordinances protecting sexual and political minorities, and pushed to get women and people of color into the trades.
In 1973, Fraser began work at Seattle City Light
, a publicly owned utility. As Training and Education Coordinator, she was charged with implementing a program to hire and train female electrical workers.
A wildcat strike by union electricians erupted soon after Fraser arrived. Fraser jumped into the fray and inspired female office staff and workers of color to join the walkout. She further incurred the wrath of City Light management by representing the workforce on a committee negotiating an Employee Bill of Rights and Responsibilities and by participating prominently in a bid by city workers to recall
the mayor because of his support for the utility's superintendent, Gordon Vickery.
Fired in 1974, Fraser immediately filed a discrimination complaint that documented pervasive political bias and sexism
. After a seven-year battle, Fraser was victorious in a ruling that affirmed the right of workers to speak out against management and to organize on their own behalf. She returned to her former job at City Light just as a new furor broke out over discrimination against women in non-traditional trades. Fraser joined with women in the field and the offices and pro-affirmative action
men to form a new organization to combat sex and race discrimination: the Employee Committee for Equal Rights at City Light (CERCL).
In 1984, an ex-FSP member named Richard Snedigar brought a harassment lawsuit against Fraser, seven other party leaders, and the organization as a whole. This case came to be known as the Freeway Hall Case.
Snedigar wanted to take back a substantial donation given years before to a fund for obtaining a new headquarters after the party was evicted from its homebase at Freeway Hall. He also demanded FSP minutes, membership lists, and names of contributors. At one point, Fraser and the party's attorneys were sentenced to jail for refusing to divulge financial information, but their sentences were stayed and ultimately overturned. The FSP pursued this case to the state Supreme Court
, where civil liberties
attorney Leonard Boudin
argued that privacy rights are essential to the freedom to express dissent. The FSP was finally vindicated in 1992.
Fraser's retirement from City Light in 1986 allowed her to focus on her responsibilities as FSP National Chair, overseeing the work of the widespread party branches, advising RW on a regular basis, and mentoring and training new generations of socialist feminists.
A theoretician of Marxist economics, intransigent anti-Zionist
, and a keen internationalist, she helped coordinate several delegations of members to the Middle East
, Northern Ireland
, the former Soviet Union
, Eastern Europe
, China
, and Cuba
. She was an advisor to the first-ever International Feminist Brigade to Cuba, undertaken by RW and the Federation of Cuban Women in late 1997.
Fraser was the first chief editor of the Freedom Socialist newspaper and wrote a regular column that appeared in the paper for 20 years. These essays, along with speeches and other writings, are collected in her book, Revolution, She Wrote (Seattle: Red Letter Press, 1998) and the pamphlet Socialism for Skeptics. Her writings for Radical Women in the early 1970s produced such as feminist classics as Woman as Leader: Double Jeopardy on Account of Sex and Which Road towards Women’s Liberation: A Radical Vanguard or a Single-Issue Coalition? These documents were recently republished by Radical Women Publications.
Clara Fraser was the mother of two sons.
Freedom Socialist Party
The Freedom Socialist Party is a socialist political party with a unique program of revolutionary feminism that emerged from a split in the United States Socialist Workers Party in 1966. It is currently a working class organization that works towards creating social justice and order for all...
and Radical Women
Radical Women
Radical Women is a socialist feminist, grassroots activist organization that provides a radical voice within the feminist movement, a feminist voice within the Left, and trains women to be leaders in the movements for social and economic justice...
.
Early life
Clara Fraser was born to Jewish immigrant parents in multi-ethnic, working class East Los AngelesEast Los Angeles, California
East Los Angeles is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Los Angeles County, California, United States...
. Her father, Samuel Goodman, was a Teamster
Teamster
A teamster, in modern American English, is a truck driver. The trade union named after them is the International Brotherhood of Teamsters , one of the largest unions in the United States....
. Her mother, Emma Goodman, was a garment worker and later a Business Agent of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female membership, and a key player in the labor history of the 1920s and 1930s...
. Fraser joined the Socialist Party
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
’s youth group in junior high school.
By 1945, after graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
with a degree in literature and education, Fraser was a recruit to the ideas of Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
, whose campaign against Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
had gained adherents worldwide. She joined the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party
Socialist Workers Party (United States)
The Socialist Workers Party is a far-left political organization in the United States. The group places a priority on "solidarity work" to aid strikes and is strongly supportive of Cuba...
(SWP) that year. In 1946, she moved to the Pacific Northwest
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...
to help build the SWP's Seattle branch.
As an assembly line electrician, Fraser joined the Boeing
Boeing
The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
strike of 1948. When the union was slapped with an anti-picketing injunction, she put together a mothers' brigade to walk the line with baby strollers. After the strike, Boeing fired and blacklist
Blacklist
A blacklist is a list or register of entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. As a verb, to blacklist can mean to deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize a person from a certain social circle...
ed Fraser, and the FBI pursued her for a decade.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Fraser stayed active in the labor arena, worked to end segregation
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
, advocated for women, and opposed the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. She worked with her then-husband, Richard Fraser, in developing Revolutionary Integration, which explains the interdependence of the struggles for socialism and African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
freedom and argues the key importance of black leadership to the U.S. working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
.
The SWP, however, was supporting the Nation of Islam
Nation of Islam
The Nation of Islam is a mainly African-American new religious movement founded in Detroit, Michigan by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad in July 1930 to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African-Americans in the United States of America. The movement teaches black pride and...
. The Seattle local conducted a long campaign to try to win the national party to its perspective. A clampdown on internal party democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
brought this effort to a dead end. Fraser co-authored the branch’s critique of the SWP’s political and organizational degeneration in a series of documents that have been re-published under the title Crisis and Leadership (Seattle: Red Letter Press, 2000).
Socialist feminist leadership
The Seattle branch left the SWP in 1966 and launched the Freedom Socialist PartyFreedom Socialist Party
The Freedom Socialist Party is a socialist political party with a unique program of revolutionary feminism that emerged from a split in the United States Socialist Workers Party in 1966. It is currently a working class organization that works towards creating social justice and order for all...
, founded on a program emphasizing the leadership role of the underprivileged in achieving progress for all of humanity.
The new party faced an immediate test of its feminism, when Fraser sought a divorce from her second husband, Richard Fraser, another FSP leader. He attempted to deprive her of custody rights by depicting her in court as an unfit mother because of her political activism. Fraser won the battle in court and with the party majority as well. (Victory for Socialist Feminism: Organizer's Report to the 1969 Freedom Socialist Party Conference [Seattle: Freedom Socialist Party Publications, 1976].)
In 1967, Fraser formed Radical Women (RW), along with Gloria Martin and young women of the New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
. RW's ambition was to teach women leadership and theoretical skills and class consciousness.
Fraser and her FSP and RW cohorts coalesced with anti-poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
organizers, mostly black women, to initiate the abortion rights movement in Washington. They supported Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
fishing rights, Chicano
Chicano
The terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" are used in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's...
and Indian occupations of government land and buildings, and Asian American
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...
demands for low-income housing. They aided draft
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
resisters, fought for child care, coordinated some of Seattle's earliest gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
and lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
pride marches, achieved city ordinances protecting sexual and political minorities, and pushed to get women and people of color into the trades.
In 1973, Fraser began work at Seattle City Light
Seattle City Light
Seattle City Light is the public utility providing electrical power to Seattle, Washington and parts of its metropolitan area, including all of Shoreline and Lake Forest Park and parts of unincorporated King County, Burien, Normandy Park, Seatac, Renton, and Tukwila...
, a publicly owned utility. As Training and Education Coordinator, she was charged with implementing a program to hire and train female electrical workers.
A wildcat strike by union electricians erupted soon after Fraser arrived. Fraser jumped into the fray and inspired female office staff and workers of color to join the walkout. She further incurred the wrath of City Light management by representing the workforce on a committee negotiating an Employee Bill of Rights and Responsibilities and by participating prominently in a bid by city workers to recall
Recall election
A recall election is a procedure by which voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before his or her term has ended...
the mayor because of his support for the utility's superintendent, Gordon Vickery.
Fired in 1974, Fraser immediately filed a discrimination complaint that documented pervasive political bias and sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
. After a seven-year battle, Fraser was victorious in a ruling that affirmed the right of workers to speak out against management and to organize on their own behalf. She returned to her former job at City Light just as a new furor broke out over discrimination against women in non-traditional trades. Fraser joined with women in the field and the offices and pro-affirmative action
Affirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
men to form a new organization to combat sex and race discrimination: the Employee Committee for Equal Rights at City Light (CERCL).
In 1984, an ex-FSP member named Richard Snedigar brought a harassment lawsuit against Fraser, seven other party leaders, and the organization as a whole. This case came to be known as the Freeway Hall Case.
Snedigar wanted to take back a substantial donation given years before to a fund for obtaining a new headquarters after the party was evicted from its homebase at Freeway Hall. He also demanded FSP minutes, membership lists, and names of contributors. At one point, Fraser and the party's attorneys were sentenced to jail for refusing to divulge financial information, but their sentences were stayed and ultimately overturned. The FSP pursued this case to the state Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
, where civil liberties
Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
attorney Leonard Boudin
Leonard Boudin
Leonard B. Boudin was an American civil liberties attorney and left-wing activist who represented Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame and Dr. Benjamin Spock, the author of Baby and Child Care, who advocated draft resistance during the Vietnam War...
argued that privacy rights are essential to the freedom to express dissent. The FSP was finally vindicated in 1992.
Fraser's retirement from City Light in 1986 allowed her to focus on her responsibilities as FSP National Chair, overseeing the work of the widespread party branches, advising RW on a regular basis, and mentoring and training new generations of socialist feminists.
A theoretician of Marxist economics, intransigent anti-Zionist
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
, and a keen internationalist, she helped coordinate several delegations of members to the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
, the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, and Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
. She was an advisor to the first-ever International Feminist Brigade to Cuba, undertaken by RW and the Federation of Cuban Women in late 1997.
Fraser was the first chief editor of the Freedom Socialist newspaper and wrote a regular column that appeared in the paper for 20 years. These essays, along with speeches and other writings, are collected in her book, Revolution, She Wrote (Seattle: Red Letter Press, 1998) and the pamphlet Socialism for Skeptics. Her writings for Radical Women in the early 1970s produced such as feminist classics as Woman as Leader: Double Jeopardy on Account of Sex and Which Road towards Women’s Liberation: A Radical Vanguard or a Single-Issue Coalition? These documents were recently republished by Radical Women Publications.
Clara Fraser was the mother of two sons.
Articles and interviews
- Carol Beers, "Activist Clara Fraser Dead At 74 —– 'Life Spent Contemplating Your Own Navel... Helps No One'", Seattle Times, 28 February 1998.
- Florangela Davila, "Still Active — Radical Clara Fraser Turns A Feisty 73", Seattle Times, 17 March 1996.
- Jack Hopkins, "Seattle’s Grande Dame of Socialism", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 11 September 1988.
- Lisa Schnellinger, "Socialism’s Flame Flickers on in Seattle", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5 May 1989.
- James Wallace, "The Socialist and the Holy Man", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 28 July, 1990.
- Jane Hadley, "Memorial Rite Set for Clara Fraser: Seattle 'Revolutionary' is Dead at 74", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2 March 1998.
- Imbert Matthee, "Boeing Strike has Parallels to '48 Walkout", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 4 December 1995.
Other references
- Barbara Love, editor, Feminists Who Changed America (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2006).
- Gloria Martin, Socialist Feminism: The First Decade, 1966-76 (Seattle: Freedom Socialist Publications, 1986).
- The Radical Women Manifesto: Socialist Feminist Theory, Program and Organizational Structure (Seattle: Red Letter Press, 2001).
- They Refused to Name Names: The Freeway Hall Case Victory (Seattle: Red Letter Press, 1995).
- Robert J. Alexander, International Trotskyism: 1929-1985, A Documented Analysis of the Movement (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991).