[An activist in multiple arenas, Howard Crofts impact in the
struggle for DC statehood, for peace, racial justice, workers rights,
can only begin to be captured by the multiple voices of those he
touched and engaged through the years.] [[link removed]]

IN MEMORIAM: DR.HOWARD CROFT 1941 - 2020  
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July 25, 2020
Washington Socialist
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_ An activist in multiple arenas, Howard Croft's impact in the
struggle for DC statehood, for peace, racial justice, workers rights,
can only begin to be captured by the multiple voices of those he
touched and engaged through the years. _

,

 

Dr. Howard Croft, DC Statehood advocate, professor and chair of urban
studies at UDC and longtime member of Metro DC DSA from its earliest
days, has died due to Covid-19. Members and activists who have long
memories of his tireless work for empowerment of all residents of the
District of Columbia contribute their recollections.

FROM RICH BRUNING

It is ironic that D.C. Statehood is before Congress for a vote while
we mourn the passing of a fierce statehood advocate, Howard Croft.
Howard was an elected delegate to the D.C. Statehood Constitutional
Convention of 1982 and remained committed to that cause his whole
life.

I knew Howard as a fellow member of DSOC and later DC/Md/No.Va. DSA
probably starting in the late 1970’s. A veteran of local politics
and the civil rights movement, he had worked with many of those
activists like Marion Barry who became the political leadership of
Washington, D.C. While he actively campaigned for and supported
elected officials like Concilmember (and DSAer) Hilda Mason and
Council Chairman Dave Clarke on critical issues such as rent control,
healthcare and education, he always retained his independence and did
not compromise his core principles.

During the contentious D.C. Statehood Constitutional Convention,
Howard, a delegate from Ward 6, acted as bridge between the factions.
He knew the city’s elected leadership but he also had deep ties with
community activists and with members of progressive organizations like
DSA and the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. With other members of the
convention’s “Left Caucus”, Howard strategized to create a
progressive document. The resulting constitution spoke to the needs of
working class people, the disadvantaged and the marginalized and he
had a major role in both crafting and adopting it.

Howard was a generous friend, always willing to give advice, engage in
discussion and share a meal and drink. In particular, he had a
full-throated laugh, often at his own expense.

Howard had a full resume- professor/chairman of Urban Studies at UDC,
parole board member, labor organizer- but to me and many others he was
above all a valued friend and comrade who will be missed.

FROM SUZANNE CROWELL

Howard was such a vibrant figure that these words are very hard to
write. I don’t think I’ve seen him since I left DC for Maine in
2002, yet I recall him vividly and his death hit hard. I think he left
that impression with everyone he spent any time with. A political
activist, champion of statehood, intellectual, educator, and jazz
devoté, he led a life centered around achieving racial justice,
social justice, even as he knew, as most of us do, that we aren’t
going to get there anytime soon. For every two steps forward, you hope
it is only one step back. Howard tackled that struggle with zest. A
man of varied interests, he made being socialist cool. Committed to
the movement broadly defined, he was forgiving of his white allies. As
one of those, I feel awkward, to say the least, commenting on his
personal identity, but to me he navigated the world with an unwavering
commitment to African American solidarity, yet with a generosity that
never shut anyone out. Back when, I was in attendance at a DSA meeting
where we considered whether or not to endorse Marion Barry’s
reelection to a second (or third?) term. The discussion listed the
many ways we thought Barry had fallen short of being worthy of our
blessing. It was a rather large meeting, so the list was long. Also
rather white, so the context was narrow. Howard lit it into us,
recounting Barry’s days in the movement of the Deep South, routinely
risking his life, and the meaning of his initial victory to what a
socialist would have called the black masses of the city. There was
dead silence. I’m not sure what impelled me but with some audacity,
as I look back, I tried to break the tension. “But Howard, what has
he done for us lately?” Another few tense seconds. A broad grin
enveloped his face. Everyone else laughed with some relief. His points
made, he continued to engage; my interjection was accepted with grace,
luckily for me.

Howard had an impact on so many fronts, and I barely know the half of
it. Probably only a fraction. I try to focus on my memories of him and
not be consumed by my bitterness over the criminal mishandling of this
epidemic and the deep wounds it has inflicted, most obviously on black
and brown people. To lose Howard in this particular way is especially
devastating. But a luta continua. Howard Croft, presente!

FROM INGRID GOLDSTROM

The death of Howard Croft has affected me deeply, just as his life
did. It has now brutally “hit home” how difficult it is to grieve
in this pandemic when we cannot be together to share memories. I write
this to share the profound impact of his life on me, both politically
and personally.

I became friends with Howard mainly through Ward 6 (Capitol Hill)
DSOC/DSA, a tight knit group of “parlor socialists” and activists
who met in the late 1970s and early 1980s, including Joel C., Cindy
P., Rick R., Richard R., and a few others. Our discussions ranged the
gamut, including Howard’s theory about baseball and socialism (which
I admittedly never quite understood!). I worked diligently on his
successful campaign for Statehood Convention delegate, in fact my
boyfriend at the time did much of his publicity.

But it was not just the political that drew me to Howard. It was in
the personal arena where my affection for and gratitude to him grew.
During a difficult period in my life, as a new single parent no longer
living on the Hill, I became politically disconnected from DSA. (In
those days, it was verboten to bring a young child to a meeting.) For
some reason, Howard threw me a lifeline. We spoke frequently on the
telephone, sometimes for more than an hour at a time, about all sorts
of things, mostly about racism.

I came to DC after 10 years at a university, where I studied what was
called “minority relations” and Black studies, as much as one
could in a racist southern university. Because of this, I arrogantly
considered myself to be “woke.” But I knew nothing. What I learned
came largely from Howard, who generously shared through his personal
experiences and knowledge that which I could never learn from books.

From Howard, I learned about the toll that racism takes on Black
people in general and Howard’s personal struggles as a Black man.
Ever the professor, he taught me about the history of the civil rights
movement, labor history, DC history and current DC politics.

I also learned what it literally meant to “burst with pride” about
your children as he recounted many stories of his daughter Helima’s
life during that period. I learned what friendship means when you are
in need and someone as busy and important as Howard reaches out to
you.

On a recent Socialist Heritage Caucus call, I recalled a conversation
with Howard, not knowing that he had died. The conversation with him
had to do with why there were so few Black people in DSA when DC was a
majority Black city with lots of progressive activity. We discussed
the question of why white people often want people of color to join
“their” organizations yet rarely join organizations that are led
by people of color. Conversations like this are at the core of why I
have pushed for an explicitly Black anti-racism focus in DSA.

Over the years, Howard and I lost touch, as happens in life, but I was
lucky enough to see him once or twice at Kurt and Lisa’s. We never
spoke about that period of our phone relationship and my feelings
about his importance to me. I sadly learned this week that I need to
let people know how meaningful they are to me before it is too late.
There is something that Jews often say when people die: ”may
‘his’ memory be a blessing.” My conversations with Howard will
always remain in the forefront of my mind as I continue to engage as a
white person fighting anti-Black racism, now working largely within
Black led organizations.

FROM BILL MOSLEY

Howard Croft’s untimely death from COVID-19 robs DSA and the local
left of one of our most effective and knowledgeable activists, one
with deep roots in DC politics and the progressive community. He was
generous with his time in sharing his experiences in local politics,
labor and racial-justice work to help DSA function more effectively. I
last saw him at a DSA salon in the fall of 2016 when he shared his
memories of working with DC political leaders and social activists
such as Marion Barry, Ivanhoe Donaldson, Josephine Butler, Richard
Rausch and Lawrence Guyot. During the talk he said that the DC left in
the 1960s and 1970s was “ecumenical” in that it united activists
from a wide variety of backgrounds and movements, noting that his
philosophy as a DSA activist was to “have no enemies on the left.”
That was the philosophy he lived by – to bring people together
around the common goal of social change. We will miss him, but his
memory and example live on.

FROM DAVID SCHWARTZMAN

I'm very sad. Howard was a friend for many years. In the fall of 2016,
we collaborated with two other delegates to the historic Statehood
Convention of 1982, organizing to confront the facade of a statehood
convention convened by [current DC] Mayor [Bowser] and the rest of the
5 member Statehood Commission. The House bill for DC Statehood that is
likely to pass on Friday, June 26, has the provision we fought for,
passed by the Council in October 2016 requiring a real delegated
Constitutional Convention no more than 2 years after becoming a state.

[That] likely passage of the DC Statehood bill in the House on June 26
will surely be in large part a result of Howard’s tireless efforts
for DC Statehood, starting with his role in creating the visionary
Constitution passed by voters in 1982 on the same ballot with the
Nuclear Weapons Freeze.

FROM KURT STAND

I recall talking with Howard in 1992. The year sticks out for a
reason: it was the 25th anniversary of the March on the Pentagon, a
key event in the burgeoning movement against the war in Vietnam.
Howard remarked that there should be a large-scale celebration of the
action because people need to remember the horror of the war and the
anti-war struggle that helped end it, and that we need to memorialize
our own history. He then talked about the march in a way that made it
clear that he had been there at that confrontation with the power of
the US military, though he had to be prodded to talk about that.
Modest about his own role in the struggles of the day, Howard
preferred talking about others, not about himself. But he played an
outsized role in countless arenas in the work to make this a better
world – and his part in the history of the movement for social
justice is a history we ought to recall and remember.

Howard joined DSA at the time of our founding in 1982. Raised in
Harrisburg and later going to school in Pittsburgh, Howard and his
family members experienced racism, experienced the injustices of
working-class life, as a matter of course. Thus his lifelong
commitment to racial justice and to economic justices as independent
but intimately connected struggles was part of Howard’s outlook from
the beginning and led him to his lifelong commitment to socialism.

As a DSA member, Howard was primarily engaged on urban issues – he
was a delegate to the Statehood Convention in 1982, was a strong
supporter of rent control, of housing the homeless, of the need to
build and maintain low-income housing. He challenged District and
federal budgets that failed to meet the needs of working people and
the poor, he advocated resetting tax policy so that it would fall on
the wealthy and business instead of on working people.

During the 1970s and thereafter, Howard worked closely with fellow
SNCC veterans John Wilson, Lawrence Guyot, Ivanhoe Donaldson and
Marion Barry who played key roles in District government from the
moment Home Rule was won. He respected them, understood their ties to
the community, shared a history of struggle – yet he was never
hesitant to criticize or challenge one or the other when he believed
an old friend was abandoning the needs of those without, or taking an
opportunist path. That too defined his relationship with Hilda Mason,
DC Council member at large (Statehood Party member and DSA National
Vice Chair) and with Dave Clarke, one-time City Council Chair whom DSA
consistently supported. Howard understood the importance of holding
office, understood the need for compromise – but he never
compromised on principle, he never gave up his ties to the community
or the independence of an activist. And, unlike too many, the
enticements of power never held an attraction for Howard.

For a number of years, Howard served on the DC parole board. And from
that position, he stood out as a strong advocate of prisoner rights
and an uncompromising opponent of mass incarceration. He foresaw the
devastating consequences the so-called war on drugs and militarized
policing would have on the African American community, at a time when
too many others were willing to go along with “tough on crime”
policing. The connecting link in his local activism was DC statehood
– but not the statehood of today’s gentrifiers, developers,
business owners and bankers. For Howard, DC Statehood was about ending
Black disenfranchisement, ending poverty and homelessness, it was
about strengthening labor and workers rights, expanding social
services, health care, education. That was his program when he ran for
DC City Council for Ward 6 in 1997.

A consummate organizer – because he knew how to listen, because he
had empathy and compassion – Howard brought those skills to his
teaching at the Urban Affairs Department at UDC (eventually serving as
Department Chair). And let’s not forget – he was a unionist,
having worked for or with many unions in DC and nationally – his
last position before retiring was as Assistant Director, SEIU Long
Term Care Division. And as that position should serve to remind,
Howard’s vision, though rooted in DC, was national and global – he
was deeply influenced by Olaf Palme’s Social Democratic government
in Sweden, Michael Manley’s attempt to forge a path of independent
development in Jamaica. He supported third world revolutionary
initiatives such as those of Julius Nyerere in Tanzania, Fidel in
Cuba, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, Maurice Bishop in Grenada.

Howard was deeply engaged in the fight against South African
apartheid, against US covert wars in El Salvador, Guatemala,
Nicaragua, against our imperial wars in Vietnam, Grenada, Panama,
Iraq, Afghanistan. Influenced by Frances Fox Piven, with whom he
studied, he was an active supporter of the National Welfare Rights
Organization and, decades later he was a supporter of the Rainbow and
Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns. Howard even served one term
on DSA’s national political committee (that our friendship survived
the fact that I was the one who persuaded him to run for the NPC, says
a great deal about his character).

And his character should not be forgotten – he was a caring person,
all of us who experienced his friendship feel that now. No one who saw
him with his wife Cynthia, heard him talk about his daughter, Helima
(which he would do at the drop of a hat), could doubt the love he
shared.

Howard always fought against racism, against health care disparities,
against the lack of public health facilities in Anacostia as across
our nation. That he died of COVID-19 serves as a reminder of the need
to continue to organize to end the multiple evils that afflict our
society in the here and now.

Expansive in his view of the world and the struggle to bring about
radical change, nuanced and humane in his understanding of
individuals, he will not be forgotten. Howard Croft presente!

AND MORE

A thoughtful recollection of Howard’s life can be found in
Washington DC's premier African-American newspaper, _The Washington
Informer
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Joni Eisenberg's radio program _TO HEAL DC_ (on WPFW, a Pacifica
affiliate) broadcast an hour-long segment about Howard with
commentaries by many who knew him.  A recording was reposted
on Metro Washington Council AFL-CIO Union City Radio’s June 30th
broadcast
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