Menstuff® has compiled the following about John Cohen.
Jon Cohen, fearless fighter against injustice and gentle spirit, died last night (10/14/03) after several years of struggling with leukemia, surrounded by family and friends. All of us who loved him are in shock, though we surely knew this day was coming sooner or later.
The funeral was Thursday at noon at the Riverside Funeral Home in Great Neck (Long Island) A full and proper memorial and celebration will occur at a later date.
He was 40 and had been ill for more than two years. A proud bisexual, he is survived by his partner Liz Roberts, the Outreach Coordinator of the Brecht Forum, two sisters, his parents and many friends. Jon Cohen was a longtime activist for peace and justice, and worked professionally as an organizer and activist in the movement to end violence against women.
Jon Cohen devoted all of his adult life to the fights against racism, sexism, heterosexism and imperialist war. His activist resume -- both in St. Louis where he lived for many years, and in the New York metro area for the past 7 years -- included not only leadership of many organizations and campaigns but also numerous civil disobedience arrests. In the 80s he was co-chair of the National Organization of Men Against Sexism. In the 90s he was active with the NY Free Mumia Abu Jamal Coalition and supporter of many U.S. political prisoners. For more than a decade, he was a member of the National and Executive Committee of the War Resisters League. I knew him as a colleague in the anti-imperialist collective called Resistance in Brooklyn, and as a tenacious fighter on the WBAI Local Advisory Board against the pro-corporate Pacifica coup that snatched our station, and then after WBAI and the network were reclaimed, as a strong voice for affirmative action in the Pacifica bylaws. More than all this, Jon was a gentle and loving spirit, who brought respect, calm and caring to everything and everyone, and who dared! to struggle lovingly with people to overcome the negative conditioning of this society.
Jon was also devoted to integrative healing, combining conventional and alternative medicine in his tenacious fight to survive. In his final years, he became a passionate critic of the abuses of the medical-industrial complex.
Jon's loss is incalculable to all our movements for peace and justice, not only locally but nationally.
Source: Bob Lederer, editor of WBAI's Website and Folio
See also Jon Cohen
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