Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr. was a founder and the executive director of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) since 1979. From 1973-1978 he was Associate General Secretary of the National Council of Churches. Through IFCO he helped to initiate the National Anti-Klan Network, now known as the Center for Democratic Renewal. He was pastor of the Salvation Baptist Church in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, N.Y. The Rev. Walker died yesterday of a massive heart attack.
Over the years I ran into Rev. Lou Walker in many political venues. Most recently I met with him and other Beacon HS parents in 1999, when he was organizing a Beacon trip to Cuba with Andrew's Spanish class. The N.Y. Post later put the Beacon trips to Cuba on its front page ("The Red High School"). Being attacked by the Post is an honor somewhat akin to having been on Nixon's enemies list.
In response to being wounded in a Nicaraguan "contra" terrorist attack in 1988, he conceived and helped to organize Pastors for Peace Material Aid Caravans to Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Cuba and Chiapas, Mexico. The Cuba caravans, or Friendshipments, have served as a challenge to the insanity, immorality and illegality of the U.S. government's blockade of Cuba. In 1996 he and four others engaged in a 94-day "Fast for Life" which successfully forced the U.S. government to release computers they had seized that were destined for hospitals in Cuba.
But these are merely some of the things that he did. As with Dennis Brutus and Marilyn Clement what they did only scratches the surface of the loss their deaths mean to our movement.
Lou Walker, Presente!
and Rest in Peace
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