John Black, a lifelong socialist and advocate for workers' and civil rights, died on March 7 after a protracted illness. He was 85 years old.
Mr. Black was born in Germany on Jan. 17, 1921, the son of a U.S. oil executive and a German citizen. During the turbulent years leading up to Adolph Hitler's rise to power, he joined the Communist Party's youth group when he was nine years old and was active in anti-fascist activities. As a youth, he worked as a courier, carrying anti-fascist messages across the German border to neighboring countries.
As many of his comrades were rounded up by the Nazi police, Black fled Germany to London. In 1940 he moved to New York, where he was active with the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party. Over the next decades he gained experience in union struggles in New York, Seattle and Buffalo.
In 1959, he helped form the Workers World Party, led by Sam Marcy. In the first issue of Workers World newspaper, in March 1959, he wrote an article defending the socialist German Democratic Republic against NATO threats to attack East Berlin.
It was during his years organizing in Buffalo that he met his wife, Bernice, who was a member of a Black community theater group. The two married weeks after meeting in 1960.
Beginning in 1961, John began working with Local 1199, then part of the Retail Wholesale and Department Stores Union, organizing hospital and health care workers. This project would consume much of his energy over the next 25 years, leading strikes, union recognition elections and contract negotiations in New York City, New Jersey, Philadelphia and central Pennsylvania. He became the first president of District 1199P, which represented hospital and nursing home workers throughout Pennsylvania.
As a union leader, he always tried to break down the anti-communist prejudices that characterized the Cold War climate. He participated in delegations to the Soviet Union, East Germany, Bulgaria, and other Eastern European countries at a time when U.S. government hostility toward the socialist countries was at its peak.
After retiring as a local union president and international union vice president in 1986, John remained active in local and national political struggles. He was a regular at anti-war and social justice activities in his home town of State College, Pa. He worked with student activists from Students and Youth Against Racism in campaigning for the freedom of death row prisoner and revolutionary Black journalist Mumia Abu Jamal. For several years, he hosted the program "View from the Left" on Penn State's WPSU radio station.
He also continued to challenge U.S. foreign policy. In 1998 and 1999, John traveled to Cuba in defiance of the U.S. government's travel restrictions against the socialist country.
In 2000, John participated in a delegation to Iraq in order to document the damage caused to the Iraqi people by then close to a decade of economic sanctions following the first Gulf War. While on that trip, he suffered a severe heart attack, which affected his health in the years to come.
Although his health declined, he never wavered from his unflinching opposition to racism and what he termed "U.S. imperialism," and his support for workers' struggles in the United States and around the world.
John Black is survived by his wife Bernice and their children, Mark, Douglass, and Jennifer, as well as his two grandchildren, Shango and Zoe. A May Day memorial service is being planned to celebrate John Black's life. Time and place are yet to be determined.