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NEWS & LETTERS, May 2002
In memoriam: Mary Holmes
Mary Obst, who wrote under the
name Mary Holmes, died from lung cancer April 4 at the age of 55. She had lived
a rich life, one deeply involved in every development in Marxist-Humanism for
more than 30 years. Her activism, her writings, her travels, all were devoted to
concretizing that revolutionary philosophy. Mary's NEWS & LETTERS
companions were graced with her mischievous smile, her wry wit and her
soft-spoken insights into ideas. The world knows her best, however, through her
extensive writings on international events in the "Our Life and Times"
articles on the back page of NEWS & LETTERS, which she co-wrote with Kevin
A. Barry since 1983. She had a particular passion
for revolutionary activity in Latin America. Her last two major articles,
written while in severe pain, were on the anti-government uprising in Argentina
for the January-February issue of N&L, and on the World Social Forum in
Porto Alegre, Brazil, for the March issue. She concluded the latter column,
"The large attendance [of 60,000] demonstrates the vitality of the
anti-globalization movement, and the objective urgency issuing from September 11
and its aftermath. One challenge is for explicitly revolutionary anti-capitalist
participants at the WSF to make their ideas heard and discussed." In the last few years, her
contributions to "Our Life and Times" included pieces on the
Zapatistas, Ariel Sharon, China, Colombia, Russia, East Timor, South Korea,
Kosova and many other areas of the world. She also wrote several lead articles
for N&L on Mexico over the years. Another important part of
Mary's legacy is her work on THE RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA COLLECTION, housed in Wayne
State University's labor archives. Mary became a professional librarian, and
contributed her meticulous efforts to the development of Dunayevskaya's archives
and the additions to them made by NEWS & LETTERS since Dunayevskaya's
death. Mary arranged and described the audio and visual collection that was
donated recently, and she was cataloging Dunayevskaya's personal library for the
collection at the time of her death. Mary met News and Letters
Committees in New York, where, after majoring in Spanish Literature in college
and participating in the student revolt at Columbia University in 1968, she
drove a taxi. She described the sexism and harassment against women drivers in
an article in N&L's first pamphlet on the new women's movement, NOTES ON
WOMEN'S LIBERATION (1971). She also fell in love with Will
Stein, a Marxist-Humanist with whom she lived until his tragic death from cancer
at age 28 in 1975. In 1972, Mary and Will moved to Detroit because they wanted
to be at the center of News and Letters Committees. For ten years in Detroit, Mary
had the challenging experience of working in a News and Letters local committee
with Raya Dunayevskaya, the founder of Marxist-Humanism. Later she worked
with Dunayevskaya on her last book, WOMEN'S LIBERATION AND THE DIALECTICS OF
REVOLUTION. While living in Detroit, Mary
got a job in an auto factory. She described that experience in sexism and
exploitation in a pamphlet she co-edited, WORKING WOMEN FOR FREEDOM (1976). In
addition to its workers' stories, the pamphlet placed the new women's movement
in historical and international context. Mary's stories and editing of pamphlets
and the newspaper exemplified her passion for women's liberation and workers'
self-emancipation. In the 1980s, Mary moved
wherever she was needed, spending two years in the San Francisco-Bay Area local
and two in the New York local, before returning to Detroit in 1986. NEWS &
LETTERS' center had moved to Chicago, but Mary continued to project a
Marxist-Humanist presence as an activist among Detroit's workers, students and
Black population. Mary loved to travel, and over
the years she made several trips to Mexico, Spain, Portugal and England.
Everywhere she engaged those in the feminist and workers' movements and
intellectuals in dialogues around their activities and ideas, introduced people
to Marxist-Humanist philosophy, and opened doors for foreign publications of
Dunayevskaya's books. In 1976, she went to Portugal
to discuss the recent revolution there, with its feminist dimension. In 1980,
she journeyed to China and met with Hong Kong dissidents who published
Dunayevskaya's critique of Mao Zedong from the Left. In the 1970s and 80s, she
made several trips to Mexico, where she established relations with militant
independent Mexican trade unions and feminist intellectuals. Mary was a fierce
Marxist-Humanist, clear-minded and intensely devoted to the ideas and
organization. We will miss her. —Anne Jaclard |
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