Vol. 73/No. 2      January 19, 2009

I worked with Shelley, both as the director of the Political Rights Defense Fund and as a fellow member of the SWP. She was part of the legal team in the fight to successfully prosecute the FBI and other government agencies for decades of spying, wiretapping, use of informers, and disruption against the SWP and Young Socialist Alliance.

Before, during, and after joining the PRDF staff, Shelley was an active member of the SWP and YSA and participated in the movement’s many political campaigns. Like a number of other party members who lived with physical disabilities—Shelley was legally blind—she fought to get a job in industry and join one of the party’s union fractions. In Chicago she tried to secure a job in the garment industry, to work and fight alongside sewing machine operators who faced growing attacks by the employers. Though this proved not to be possible, and Shelley eventually decided to resign from the SWP, she continued to identify with working-class struggles throughout her life.

For the last two decades of her life, Shelley was an advocate and legal representative for the rights of farm workers and their organizations, becoming the deputy director of Farmworker Justice.

John Studer
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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