Vol. 73/No. 26      July 13, 2009

Speakers included SWP National Committee member Norton Sandler; B.J. Case, a leader of the fight by oil workers locked out by Crown Central Petroleum in the mid-1990s; and Jacquie Henderson, from the SWP branch in Houston. Steve Warshell, organizer of the Houston SWP branch executive committee, chaired the meeting.

Case met Leonard while locked out by Crown in 1996, in a fight that included defending workers from a civil lawsuit by the company charging 14 workers with more than 400 acts of sabotage. “For six long years,” Case explained, “we were helped every day by people we never met. Tom was one of many who came. He probably spent the most time with all of us.” Case emphasized Leonard’s contribution in helping the locked-out workers reach out and win solidarity from other unions, from Black farmers, and others during their hard-fought struggle.

Henderson described the many public talks and forums Leonard gave across the United States and in Australia and New Zealand in 2002 as part of his work on the Maritime Project Fund. The fund enabled Leonard to work on pulling together the experiences of the SWP union fraction in the maritime industry. “He threw himself into his work,” Henderson said. “He made party history accessible to those joining the movement.”

Leonard joined the party in 1951. He lived in Houston for 28 of almost 60 years in the party. Sandler described the many important political developments in which the party branch in Houston took part during this time.

The SWP branch in Houston was chartered in the summer of 1970. Houston was a Ku Klux Klan-ridden city, with this racist and antilabor outfit having deep roots in the police department and at city hall, said Sandler.

In March 1971 the SWP headquarters was firebombed. The Klan tried to bust into the party headquarters but were turned back. A couple months after the firebombing, the party’s offices were shot full of bullet holes. The company insuring the building canceled its policy and for a few months the party could not get offices anywhere.

Sandler described how members of the SWP in Houston organized with others to spend nights guarding Fred Brode and his home. Brode was a leader of the movement against the Vietnam War whose house was frequently shot at by the KKK. The Pacifica radio station was firebombed. The Chicano rights movement and Black rights fighters faced similar rightist and racist violence.

The SWP worked with all kinds of forces to defend democratic rights and freedom of speech. Debbie Leonard, SWP candidate for Houston mayor, had televised debates with Frank Converse, head of the Klan. These debates received widespread publicity and exposed the lack of action against the Klan by city officials. As a result of this work with others, four Klansmen were indicted in June 1971 for acts of terrorism in the bombing of the SWP offices three months earlier.

In the mid-1970s members of the United Steelworkers of America began a struggle for the right to vote on their contracts. Part of this fight was the candidacy of Ed Sadlowski for president of the international union. Tom Leonard was a member of the Steelworkers union at that time and an activist in the Sadlowski campaign.

As part of his remarks, Sandler reviewed some of Leonard’s political experiences as a merchant seaman in World War II. “He studied on those ships. He read literature of the world, though he was modest about it. He never forgot the connection of struggles of the working class in this country to struggles around the world,” Sandler said.

Sandler concluded his remarks by thanking, on behalf of the Socialist Workers Party National Committee, the many contributors to the Maritime Project Fund and the Houston branch for making the work possible.

Participants stayed for hours after the meeting enjoying food and refreshments, getting to know each other, and continuing political discussion on a wide range of topics. Participants at the meeting came from Houston, San Antonio, New Orleans, New York, Seattle, San Francisco, and Atlanta. A national celebration of Leonard’s life and contributions will be held July 11 in New York during the party’s effort to get on the ballot in New York City.  
 
 
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