Bella Ciao to Comrade Sandy

On May 12 our comrade, Sandy Spier, lost her 10 month fight with a brutally aggressive colon cancer.
Sandy joined the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) some fifty years ago while living in Minnesota.  At the time, PLP was organizing to fight against the imperialist Vietnam War. We were also spearheading the fight against academic racism. At a time when Black workers were leading a strike wave across the U.S. and  rebellions in the inner cities and were at the forefront of the fight within the military against the war, a group of academic prostitutes came up with theories that Black workers were destined to be violent and stay poor because of genetics. PL led the charge disproving these racist ideas. We were also trying to build alliances between the struggles of workers and students. The friends she made in Minnesota  remained her friends for years. People throughout the Midwest remember her coming to marches and summer projects.
About 20 years ago she moved to New York City where she has been active ever since. After a couple of years, she began working at Downstate Medical Center. She became active in the union, United University Professionals, and was known for advancing ideas of anti-racism, multi-racial unity, and supporting other workers, both in the U.S. and around the world. She was ever a voice for more militant fight back. She helped organize a demonstration outside Downstate on the first day of Desert Storm. More recently, when Downstate was threatened with closure, she spearheaded a large demonstration outside the hospital with the help of Occupy Wall Street which the union joined. That rally set the tone for future demonstrations.
Meanwhile, whenever there was a demonstration against a racist murder by cop, or in support of striking workers, or against attacks on immigrants, or in support of workers in other countries, struggling against their terrible conditions, Sandy was there.
Sandy also loved music. She always rode the May Day buses armed with song sheets to get people singing. She sang for a few years in a choral group in Brooklyn. She organized a holiday party every year that brought together her friends from work, church, and other activities .She bought a home in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania and in her time up there she got involved with folks fighting back. She traveled the world, searching out her relatives in Norway. As late as  February, 2020 she and a friend took a snowmobile trip up into the wilds of Norway and she got to see the northern lights from within the Arctic circle.
From Minnesota to Flatbush to Jim Thorpe, on the job, in her neighborhoods with family, Sandy built and maintained ties with scores of people.
She never missed a May Day march, whether in Chicago, Washington, D.C. or Flatbush. This year May Day was less than two weeks before she died. One of her comrades called her on his cell and let her hear and see our 2021 May Day march.
There is a song that PLP has adapted from a version sung by Italian partisans fighting the Nazis in World War II called “Bella Ciao” (Beautiful Goodbye). “I go out in the morning to fight the oppressor. Bella Ciao. If I die in combat, Bella Ciao. Take my gun into your hands.”  Bella ciao, Sandy. We will remember your quiet good humor, your ready laugh and your unwavering dedication to the fight of the world’s working class for a communist future. With you in our hearts, we will continue the struggle.