Remembering Kevin Whitfield: A communist intellectual of principle and character

Kevin Whitfield, a cherished member of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), died on August 12, 2021 from Alzheimer’s disease. Kevin was born in Brooklyn in 1933 and spent part of his youth in the Panama Canal Zone. There he saw firsthand the horrible impact of U.S. imperialism on the lives of the local working class. This experience helped set Kevin on the path to a life committed to destroying capitalism. Following World War II, his family returned to Queens, NYC where Kevin attended high school and later Columbia University studying Classics and languages.
Kevin’s ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) financed college education required him to serve for more than four years in the Navy. As a U.S. naval intelligence officer fluent in both Russian and German, Kevin was assigned to listen to Russian-language radio reports in the Far East. This gave him a unique perspective on the workings of both the U.S. and Russian militaries. He was forced to listen as fellow U.S. officers bragged about the genocide of three million Koreans killed during that war. Similarly, he witnessed the growing hypocrisy and imperialism of the once socialist Soviet Union.
Fighting imperialism and racism
After his Navy tour of duty, Kevin completed his PhD at Columbia and taught Classics at Columbia, Wesleyan, Brooklyn College, and later UMass/Boston. With his background as a former Naval officer and Irish working-class boy who made good, Kevin could easily have become an academic star. Instead, when anti-Vietnam war students approached him, he gave them his full support. His active opposition to the Vietnam War was a key factor in his denial of tenure at Wesleyan and Brooklyn College.
In the early 1970’s Kevin met members of  the International Committee Against Racism (InCAR) and joined the fight to build a multiracial, antiracist mass movement. A few years later, Kevin and his family moved to Boston, where he taught for nearly 10 years at UMass/Boston. He helped build a large and influential InCAR chapter that led to many young people joining PLP. The UMass group became the key component in the many antiracist (often violent) battles against the Klan and other racist groups in Boston and Connecticut. This also included battles against racist police terror in Boston, Worcester and Lowell. Kevin’s efforts helped stop Klan organizing in Boston and New England.
Fighting for communism
As a professor of classics (as well as philosophy and law), Kevin had a great knowledge not only of Greek and Latin, but also of ancient history. Unlike the idealists who one-sidedly glorified Athenian ‘democracy,’ Kevin would point out that Athens was a society based on slavery which conquered and oppressed other parts of the Mediterranean basin. He introduced thousands of students to communist ideas and participated in many campus struggles against budget cuts, racism, and military recruiters. Students would crowd into his office and enthusiastically discuss politics with him there or in the cafeteria.  
Kevin was a well studied and modest man who was always there when political work needed to be done, whether writing, editing and distributing leaflets, attending antiracist rallies, or supporting and advising comrades. He worked in community organizations fighting gentrification and evictions and built a communist base among his neighbors in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Serving the working class
Kevin and his wife Pat always welcomed people from all walks of life into their home for good food and provocative conversation. You never heard Kevin complain. He was always comradely, gracious, and supportive, with an ability to make constructive criticisms without judgment. He lent a global and historical perspective to our meetings, struggled with us to follow the plans we had made, and learn from our mistakes.
He modeled for other academics in the Party how to shed the arrogance that’s inherent in professional training and to use one’s position as a “highly educated” person to serve the working class in word and deed. He was a beloved member of the PLP community in the Boston area. We will long remember Kevin’s many contributions. He will live on in our hearts, minds, and in our continued fight back.