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NEWS & LETTERS, December 2002
Remembering Lynn
Our friend and comrade, Lynn Barrier, died on Oct. 24 at
the age of 49, after suffering the past nine years through numerous painful
surgeries, infections and other complications from a serious auto accident in
1993. Lynn was born on June 22, 1953 in Uniontown, Pa., but lived
her life in various parts of the country from Colorado, to Oklahoma, to
Louisiana. As a working woman, she operated a punch press, worked as a grocery
clerk and cashier, and during the tough times in her years as a single mom
started her own "have bucket, will travel" home cleaning service. Whether working or unemployed, Lynn remained a lifelong
activist in the struggle for workers' rights. After meeting News and Letters
Committees, she visited Chicago and participated in the Labor Day Parade in
1992. As she wrote then: "I marched with the displaced workers from Oscar
Mayer because theirs was a grassroots freedom struggle separated from the
policies of both the union bureaucrats and the company. They are being sold down
the river by the company and their union alike." She also wrote of how
"we workers are slaves to a system. If we are supposed to be one of the
greatests nations, why do we see so many homeless, starving, lost people?" Yet her indomitable faith that people could come together
to overthrow that system came through often. In attacking the acquittal of the
white cops who beat Rodney King, she said, "Why are these men above the
law? We need to come together as human beings, not by our races, but by the
oppression we all suffer. We little people aren't each others' enemies! We're
all the same and it is a shame the fat cats can keep us apart, because together
we could make them fall. And there are definitely more of us than those damn
politicians." As a resident of Oklahoma City at the time of the domestic
terrorist bombing of the federal building there, Lynn shared these thoughts:
"Everyone just pitched in, the minute the bomb exploded, to do whatever
they could to help. Nobody had to organize anyone, they just organized
themselves. It proved how different things could be in a different society. When
you see something horrible like this hitting ordinary people, just like you and
me, it hits home. I hope that all those people who didn't have any remorse when
the U.S. bombed Baghdad (in the Persian Gulf war), killing a lot of innocent men
and women and children who had never done anything to us, will have their eyes
opened and begin to understand what those people were feeling." Lynn's truly American working class voice which she shared
with us in so many ways, including her words and her art, will be missed by
everyone whose lives she touched. Our thoughts go out to Ned, her husband and
colleague, as well as her children and grandchildren. Her spirit will live on in
everyone working for a truly new, human society. --News and Letters Committees comrades |
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