Cheryl Goertz, 55 years as a cadre building the Socialist Workers Party

By Susan Lamont
June 8, 2020
Cheryl Goertz marches on May Day 2008 in Carrollton, Georgia, calling for justice for Sean Bell, a young Black man who was murdered by New York cops in November 2006.
Militant/Dave WulpCheryl Goertz marches on May Day 2008 in Carrollton, Georgia, calling for justice for Sean Bell, a young Black man who was murdered by New York cops in November 2006.

ATLANTA — Cheryl Goertz, a 55-year cadre of the Socialist Workers Party, died May 19 of complications from a lifelong congenital autoimmune disease. Born in Hillsboro, Kansas, in 1944, Goertz joined the SWP in the mid-1960s in Chicago. She spent the rest of her life building the party in cities across the country, including Chicago; Boston; Salt Lake City; Tampa, Florida; Pasadena, California; Birmingham, Alabama; Atlanta; and Carrollton, Georgia.

Goertz shouldered many party responsibilities, from organizing Socialist Workers Party and Militant fund drives to help getting SWP candidates on the ballot, making sure every detail of often complex paperwork was properly carried out. She joined the international campaign to free Troy Davis from death row, an effort centered in Georgia, where she lived with her companion Dave Wulp since 2005.

Goertz covered and sent pictures for the Militant on the Troy Davis fight and a wide variety of union and social struggles.

A May 30 meeting is being organized by the party in Atlanta to celebrate her contributions to building the revolutionary working-class movement. Messages from those who knew and worked with her should be sent to the SWP in Atlanta, with copies to the Militant. A future issue will carry a report on the meeting.