Portside

Mark Ira Solomon – historian, author, teacher, organizer, and socialist – passed away December 19, 2024, at the age of 92. He was predeceased in 2023 by his wife and closest companion Pauline Sarelakos Solomon, and his son David in Berlin in 2015. He is survived by his son Bill, nephew Jeff Shapiro and his family, and many loving cousins. They include Nora Lester Murad, her husband Hani, and their daughters Serene, Jassi, and Maysanne. The daughters considered Mark and Pauline as their Boston grandparents.

Mark and Pauline fearlessly fused the progressive legacies of Jewish and Greek activism. Mark Grew up in the predominantly Black community of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. Mark attended Public School 35 at the corner of Fulton Street and Utica Avenue, a reputed “problem school” where “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was a school anthem. He graduated from Franklin K. Lane High School. There was a strong Left presence in the community, exposing him to movements and public figures for racial equality and peace, most notably Party leader James W. Ford. Communist and American Labor Party sound-trucks often drove through the neighborhood, while soapbox orators challenged the anti-Communist Smith Act.

In this setting, Mark began his first political involvement. He would encounter such important African American figures in New York as Benjamin J. Davis, Paul Robeson, Lorraine Hansberry, John Oliver Killens, Douglass Turner Ward, Esther Cooper Jackson and James E. Jackson. A close follower of jazz, Mark approached Charlie Parker to endorse Du Bois and heard Miles Davis perform for the Labor Youth League.

In the 1940s and 50s, Mark was an active participant in the American Youth for Democracy and the Labor Youth League, where he met Pauline. That was despite the United States Attorney General denouncing the American Youth for Democracy as subversive.

Mark circulated the Stockholm Peace Appeal to ban nuclear weapons, initiated by the World Peace Council despite condemnation of the appeal by the State Department and the labeling of the council as a “Soviet-inspired” communist front by the Central Intelligence Agency. Undeterred, Mark stumped in for leftist scholar W.E.B. Du Bois in the latter’s 1950 U.S. Senate campaign in New York. Mark gathered signatures for the “We Charge Genocide” petition decrying oppression of African Americans.

The petition was presented to the United Nations by its author, William L. Patterson, head of the Civil Rights Congress, and the courageous actor, singer and athlete Paul Robeson. DuBois was a signatory to that petition.

Dismissed from the military for refusing to sign a loyalty oath, Mark sued and won his GI Bill tuition benefits. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in history from Wayne State University in Detroit and a master’s degree in history at the University of Michigan.

The Solomons lived in Detroit from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s. While there, Mark worked with union activist Coleman Young, who would eventually become the city’s first African American mayor. The Solomons moved to eastern Massachusetts in 1963. In 1967, he began teaching at Simmons College in Boston. He was active in a host of progressive peace movements in Massachusetts, and a prime mover for the Massachusetts leg of Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 run for president. He met with her on numerous occasions and chairing local rallies. Chisholm had working relationships with the Left going back to the 1950s. Later in life, Mark recalled her as “magnetic” and “warm,” without “a trace of pretense. 

Along with later New York mayor David   Dickinson and Congressmember Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, he recorded an oral history of Chisholm for the Hutchins Center.

In the 1970s and 80s, Mark was a founding member and co-chair of the U.S. Peace Council, an editor of the magazine Labor Today, and a founding leader of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, which emerged from the exodus of more than a thousand people from the Communist Party USA in 1992. He worked closely with many well-known people, among them the late former Mayor of Berkeley, California, Gus Newport, and the longtime leader of the Committees of Correspondence, Charlene Mitchell.

A member of the editorial board of the journal Science & Society, he taught at Simmons for 30 years, serving as chair of the History department and earning a doctorate in The History of American Civilization from Harvard University in 1972. Mark’s cousin Sara Ringler noted how important learning was throughout Mark’s life. “When we were growing up in Brooklyn and all our first cousins were scattered around, I remember our parents telling us that cousin Mark was still in school. It seemed as if he was always in school. He was a grown man with a family and he was still in school. Even though he was far from his roots in Brooklyn, our family was always very proud of his accomplishments.”

In addition to learning, Mark loved teaching. “His students adored him,” remembered Simmons colleague Elaine Hagopian.

The students did not have to be in his classes. Norrie Feigenbaum was a first-year college student in 1967 and part of a small group of undergrad and graduate students at Boston-area colleges that met with Mark to discuss how to respond to the Vietnam War and the calls to establish Black Studies programs. “Mark, the older and more seasoned leader, provided us with the educational support to view all these events, and the various elements that composed the left-wing movement, in a wider context,” said Feigenbaum, who went on to her own college teaching career. “…He would always end by making helpful and positive comments about the future: we have to continue plugging away together if we're going to accomplish any of our progressive goals and objectives.”

After retirement in 1997, he kept his ties to the school as advisor to the provost. He was also a Fellow at Harvard’s Du Bois Institute.

An accomplished scholar, Mark’s most noteworthy work was The Cry Was Unity, a study of the Communist Party USA’s work with and relationship to movements for African American equality. At times, The Cry was Unity includes Mark’s autobiographical reflections. Decades of research flowed into his book as he traced the African Blood Brotherhood, the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, the Southern Negro Youth Congress, the National Negro Congress, and the roles of Communists therein. 

The Cry Was Unity documents the evolution of Party stances toward Black nationalism, self-determination, and anti-segregation engagements, North and South. It shows how anti-Communism after World War II undermined the strength and cohesion of the radical postwar generation. The book punctuated what literary historian and friend Alan Wald praises as “Mark’s “multi-decade long immersion in the CP organization and political culture that produced a person of high integrity, deep humanity, and an astute critical self-consciousness about his own human limitations and mistakes.”

Mark’s scholarship, activism and classroom lessons drew substantial notice from the FBI, evidenced in a lengthy file on him that dates back to the Cold War. His teaching notes about the Korean War (1950-1953) show why: that US policymakers obscured the extreme anti-Communism and fascistic policies of South Korean leaders; that they used racist imagery depicting Koreans and Chinese as barbarians and “hordes”; that the US was directly responsible for three million deaths; that tragedy was the outcome.

Mark was not intimidated by such scrutiny. Among Mark’s scholarly models was Ray Ginger, the Eugene Debs biographer blacklisted in the McCarthy period. Voluminous source collections lined the walls of his office. Even when he left the Communist Party USA to co-found the Committees of Correspondence he said: “We need to do something that the left has rarely done: Dig deeply into our own history and traditions, values, in defining perspectives for democracy and socialism.” He pictured a bridge between “the unlikely but kindred” spirits “of Bertolt Brecht (“who said: how is it that we who want happiness for the people of the whole world can be so cruel to each other?”) and Aretha Franklin (“who told us how to spell RESPECT”). Today we have a hard job that will require all the expertise, all the good will, all the patience, all the irony, all the humor, all the staying power that we can muster.”

This was Mark Solomon’s ethos.

Journalist-activist Bill Fletcher Jr: calls him “a wonderful friend and comrade, an incredible author and teacher.” Longtime friend Hal Weaver says, “Mark was an extraordinary human being, so passionate about justice, the well-being of human beings. He was not merely a faithful ally of the marginalized, but he was really one of us.”

Hagopian said Mark brought his passion for the well-being of others into the office. She recalled how Mark brought warmth and joy to Ruth Hirsh, the secretary of the Simmons History Department. Hirsh endured a life with polio but showed up valiantly for daily work. “Mark always greeted her with one of his hilarious imitations of despised world figures or some stand-up joke that always brought cheer to Ruth as she laughingly chided him for reminding her of despicable characters,” Hagopian said. “She took great comfort in his recognition of her personhood. It made a difference for her.”

Hagopian also remembered how Mark and Pauline joined in a “Hands around Jerusalem” on December 31, 1990. It was a global event organized by progressive Israelis and Palestinians to support Palestinian rights. They were joined by delegations from around the Globe. “Considering the public exposure, their presence was more than courageous,” Hagopian said. “There are countless memories of his and Pauline’s unassuming friendship and support, which I am sure those of you here have experienced. Both always gave emotional shelter to those of us who were disparaged for our leftist political views. I will be forever grateful to both of them.”

Fellow peace activist Leslie Cagan said Mark “always projected a strong, and at the same time gentle, presence. His clear thinking and political commitments never wavered and were matched by his always wanting to know what others were thinking, what new ideas were emerging, how by working together we could collectively find our way forward. The combination of his solid footing and his deep curiosity meant he was always the person I wanted to hear from in the literally countless meetings we attended.” 

Mark’s sense of humor struck all who knew him. Colleague Kathryn Kasch terms him “one of the nicest people I've ever met. Brilliant and radical, but kind of self-deprecating with that adorable mix of a Woody Allen/Larry David/Seinfeld persona.”

Longtime union organizer Marilyn Albert emphasizes: “People were always glad that Mark was present at a meeting, I think firstly, because they knew they would get profound political insight into thorny issues from Mark, and secondly, because Mark was an extremely funny person. He was a terrific storyteller who made sometimes tedious meetings enjoyable and laughter filled. How lucky we were to have had Mark around us!”

In the Murad home, Maysanne Murad called Mark “bumpy bumpy” because of the way they bumped heads since she was born. “There wasn’t a visit when Mark wasn’t singing,” Maysanne said. “From bagel breakfasts to dinners when my dad made Pauline’s favorite chicken cutlets, if the story called for it, Mark would gladly launch into old Hollywood tunes. A hug from Mark felt like a hug from home.”

Jassi said, “Mark was my oldest friend. And no matter how old he got, he never lost his humour and curiosity. We spent precious time together doing physiotherapy and breath-work, at which he would laugh, then affirm that he has never done this before and was finding it useful and intriguing. My whole life he has inspired me with his mind that never stops asking questions and his soul that never stops sharing love.”

Nora remembered the story Mark told about his father Sam trying to give him more responsibility at the family’s neighborhood store. Sam assigned Mark the task of negotiating with an employee who had asked for a raise. The employee asked for a dollar, and Mark just said “okay.” Mark said that’s when his dad realized that his son “was not a good capitalist.”

Nora also remembered asking Mark talking about his youthful experiences with antisemitism, such as the time he was working at a print shop. As the story went, two workers blocked Mark from his tools and uttered an anti-Jewish slur. Mark told Nora, “I went around them and took my tools. I had work to do.”

Hani said Mark “taught us to always think of the disadvantaged, take the common people's side and speak truth to power. He was witty and funny. We enjoyed so many meals together and argued about the Detroit sports teams.” Mark’s devotion to Detroit’s football Lions, baseball Tigers and basketball Pistons grew from his eight years in that city. Derrick Z. Jackson, a former Simmons journalism professor, Wisconsinite and a Green Bay Packers fan, watched many Packers-Lions games with Mark. “I will always treasure his presence as a colleague, TV football buddy and elder statesman of political common sense,” Jackson said. “As we cheered or moaned for our teams, he had the world's problems identified by halftime and solved by the end of the game (well, only if the Lions won). It's unfair in the cosmos that Mark went before the end of the Lions’ best-ever chance at its first Super Bowl.”

Mark’s son Bill said Detroit teams filled the sorrowful gap left by the Brooklyn Dodgers. “He was a fanatical Brooklyn Dodgers fan and attended the notorious playoff game at the Polo Grounds on October 3, 1951, where the Dodgers were on the verge of winning only to lose on the Bobby Thompson walk-off 3 run home run,” Bill said. “The thing that stuck with me over the years is that on the train back to Brooklyn he recounted that there were numerous grown men crying.”

We are all crying now that Mark has left us. The joy, purpose and playfulness that he shared was summed up by friend Kathryn Kasch, who met Mark in Boston around 1980 through the US Peace Council. “When Gus Newport and I got married in Boston in 1989 (in an interracial marriage), Mark stood up with us and invoked one of the slogans from the 1930s: "Black and white unite and fight!"