In Memoriam: Lucinda L. Tate 1946 – 2015

By Advancing Human Rights Issues Committee (Barbara L Nielsen, chair)

It is with great sorrow that we inform you of the death of Lucinda Tate, on January 17, and with bittersweet hope for the future that we announce plans for the establishment of the Lucinda L. Tate Human Rights Education Fund of the [WILPF US] Advancing Human Rights issues committee (AHR), as a memorial tribute fund in honor of Lucinda, whose passing in Portland, Oregon, was a shock of immense loss and sadness to all of us who knew her and her work. Services will be held Saturday, February 28, 2015, at 2 p.m. in her parish of St. Andrew Catholic Church, 806 Northeast Alberta Street, Portland, Oregon.

Lucinda Lilly Tate, the embodiment of compassion, civility and courage, was chair and later co-chair of the national AHR Issues Committee and locally served as convener of our Portland, Oregon Branch. Lucinda made substantive contributions spanning many decades of her time and energy to Portland-based activities that advanced peace, social and economic justice for all and honored her African-American, Cherokee, Cree and Blackfoot heritages in all of her work. A native Oregonian, she grew up in Montana, earned a bachelor’s degree in education and a teaching certificate from Montana State University in Billings, then earned an Oregon teaching certificate at Portland State University and spent two years as a classroom teacher.

Lucinda Tate worked tirelessly for more than 40 years advocating for Oregon’s poor and underrepresented communities in remunerative as well as volunteer capacities. A long-time board member of the Oregon Food Bank, she also worked for and served in leadership positions in organizations such as the African American Catholic Community of Oregon, the Janus Youth Program, the Metropolitan Alliance for the Common Good and the Portland Rainbow Coalition. She held formal positions in the District of Columbia for the US Department of Labor, and back in Oregon at the Mount Hood and Portland Community Colleges and the City of Portland, and was active in Service Employees International Union Local 88, as shop steward. Serving on the board of the Oregon State Education Association, she had been the first Black woman elected as district president, representing more than 1,500 state employees. She retired from her active and varied working career after 10 years of service working as the community outreach coordinator and community center director at Portland’s St. Andrew Catholic Church.

As co-chair of the AHR issues committee, Lucinda Tate worked collaboratively to establish its Human Trafficking subcommittee and to coordinate WILPF’s anti-trafficking work in coalition with the campaign of the United Methodist Women to “Intercept Human Trafficking” around the Super Bowl. She further “acted locally” in Portland, while she brought attention to the global issues of the spectrum of human trafficking that intensify around this iconic event that has become so emblematic of excessive celebratory conspicuous consumption in many forms, and had planned on educational leafleting again in February 2015 at a local sports bar.

At the 2014 WILPF US Triennial Congress in Detroit, she skillfully melded and excellently facilitated a half-dozen members’ disparate presentations into a lively, coherent and well-received panel workshop on Violence Against Women, including human trafficking. At the time of her untimely death, she was eagerly looking forward to participating in the WILPF US Local 2 Global practicum at the United Nations 59th Commission on the Status of Women, working on a Cities for CEDAW project within her branch simultaneously while mentoring a young Portland branch member in these activities. She is sorely missed.

Contact Barbara Nielsen bln.sf.ca@gmail.com for information on plans for the education fund.

Photo: Lucinda Tate on Super Bowl Sunday 2014, in photo she had one of the sports goers take outside a Portland sports tavern showing the game.