Marshall Garcia, Presente!
Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS)
August 27, 2006
Marshall Garcia, a life-long working class organizer and internationalist, died August 23rd in New York City’s Presbyterian Hospital, after a seven year struggle with throat cancer. He was 77.
Marshall was born in New York in 1929 to a Cuban immigrant family. In the 1960s, he worked as a rank and file activist at the Ford plant in Mahwah, N.J. and the G.E. factory in Schenectady, NY. In the early 1970s, Marshall joined the ranks as organizer of what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously described as his favorite union, the health care workers union Local 1199 in New York. Some 30 years later, Marshall retired. He and his life-long wife and companera, Edith Garcia, spent time between New York and their home in Puerto Rico.
Marshall was selfless throughout his life in his commitment to the class struggle in the U.S. and in the movements that challenged U.S. foreign policy around the world. His energies were dedicated to fighting the U.S. embargo of Cuba, against apartheid in South Africa, the U.S. war against Vietnam, and the movement against the U.S. sponsored overthrow of the democratic Allende government in Chile. He was a friend of the Sandinistas in their revolutionary struggle against the Somoza dictatorship, and later, was part of the movement against U.S. support for the Nicaraguan Contras.
While living in Puerto Rico, Marshall was part of the movement that ousted the United States military base from Vieques. In recent months, Marshall did not let his illness stand in the way of marching in demonstrations against the U.S. war on Iraq.
As a founding member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, Marshall was committed to an organization that was dedicated to the struggles to put an end to working class exploitation, for unity of Black, white, Latino peoples, and building toward a socialist future. Since the early 1990s, Marshall served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Committees of Correspondence Education Fund.
Charlene Mitchell, a national co-chair of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, said, “Marshall was loved by so many people. He was one who gave meaning to Che’s definition of a true revolutionary – he was guided by great feelings of love for people.”
Marshall is survived by his wife, Edie, who carries on in the struggles that both she and Marshall have dedicated their lives. Marshall and Edie have three children, Carmen, Marshall, Jr., and Maria, and nine grandchildren.
SEIU Local 1199 will hold a memorial for him at the union’s headquarters in New York City in September.