Yesterday, we lost a powerhouse thinker and organizer, a comrade, a mentor, and an inspiration to so many on the left, the co-chair of our campaign committee, Bruce Dixon.
Bruce was one of my favorite people on the planet. We worked together a few years ago to put together a presentation on the need for the Green Party to become a mass party of dues-paying members if it is going to become a serious force in American politics. We received an overwhelmingly positive reaction to it and we were going to present it again this year. He would want me to go ahead with these presentations, but they won’t be nearly as good without him.
Bruce has a long history of political activism for Black liberation and the poor. In the ’60s Bruce was a student activist and rank-and-file member of the Black Panther Party in Chicago. In the ’70s and ’80s, he was a community organizer in some of the poorest neighborhoods in urban America, working on issues of housing and poverty. In the ’80s and ’90s, he was a volunteer, staffer, and consultant to dozens of community groups and political campaigns and local government in Chicago. (You can read more about his history as an activist here.)
At the end of 2000, Bruce moved to Marietta, Georgia, where he worked for several years as an IT professional. In 2002 he began writing for Black Commentator and in 2006 co-founded Black Agenda Report with Glen Ford and Margaret Kimberley. Bruce’s political analysis based on his experience as an activist and from his work on political campaigns brought tremendous insight to people trying to understand what was really happening in US politics. Bruce had a biting wit, a razor-sharp sense of humor, and a strong passion for challenging all of our notions. He offered fearless critiques on a wide range of left issues that few are bold enough to make, and he always did so with a no-nonsense, plain-spoken bravado that resonated with a wide audience.
Bruce was the co-chair of the Georgia Green Party, a member of the Ballot Access and National Committee of the Green Party of the United States, and a coordinator for the 2016 Stein/Baraka presidential campaign.
The entire Hawkins campaign team is saddened by the passing of this revolutionary figure. He was a true comrade and a dear friend. We offer our sympathy to his wife, Carole; brother, Bud; daughter, Anna; son, Nate; and the rest of his family and loved ones.
Solidarity, Bruce. We love you. Power to the people!
Howie Hawkins
Andrea Mérida Cuéllar
Brendan Phillips
Chris Blankenhorn
David Petrovich
Gini Lester
Kevin Zeese
Lea Pierce
Michael Trudeau
Rose Roby
Tommie James
Tony Ndege
Travis Christal
Bruce talked to me about a project I was inspired to start . This was due to a post I read about him reading to kids in New York. I started a summer reading program in Lansing, Michigan, in an economically challenged neighborhood. I appreciated the time he took to talk to me about it. Rest in power, Bruce.
I actually sent an email back on April 4th thanking Mr Dixon for bringing Howie’s (at that time) possible candidacy to my attention in a piece he wrote for BAR. He is how I found out about you. May he rest in peace.
I remember fondly what Socialist Alternative member Kshama Sawant said of Bruce Dixon after her participation in the 2015 Future of Left and Independent Politics conference in Chicago on May 2-3 to discuss and debate the prospects for building an electoral challenge to the left of the Democratic Party.
His mind and spirit embodied a powerful clarity and focus that are sorely needed today.
Emilano Zapata’s words fit Bruce to a tee:
“I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.”
Bruce got it clearly:
Bruce Dixon, co-chair of the Georgia Green Party, expressed the dominant sense of the conference. In his presentation at the evening public meeting on “Elections, Labor and Social Movements: Why We Need Independent Political Campaigns,” Dixon explained that he had begun his political activity as a Black Panther and had worked for Black Democrats in Chicago in 1970s and 1980s, like former Mayor Harold Washington, but that his experience in Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition changed him from what he described as being a “Democrat in denial.”
Dixon argued that Sanders would do exactly what Jackson and Dennis Kucinich had done, which is to act as the “the left sheepdog for the Democratic Party–he’ll guard the flock and drive anyone who tries to leave back into line.”
I’ll end with a poem for Bruce:
For the Anniversary of My Death
BY W. S. Merwin
Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star
Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what
W. S. Merwin, “For the Anniversary of My Death” from The Second Four Books of Poems (Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 1993). Copyright © 1993 by W. S. Merwin. Reprinted with the permission of The Wylie Agency, Inc.
¡Que viva Zapata! ¡Que viva Dixon!
Bruce Dixon and Hugh Esco managed my outreach and social media in my DC Council At-Large campaign as a DC Statehood Green Party candidate in 2010. His inspiring leadership and fighting spirit will live on.