Revolutionary & Left Activism

Pacific Edge – October 15, 2015
By Russ Grayson

A fine, mild Saturday afternoon in October 2015 was a suitable day to remember the late John Percy. As 4pm approached, the building at Addison Road Community Centre was almost full and would soon be standing room only.

The John Percy memorial event marked the conclusion of John’s posted collection exhibition that graphically documented the history of the movement.

Sydney Morning Herald – September 18, 2015
By Max Lane

Many people visiting Glebe any time during the last 25 years would have seen a man standing on Glebe Point Rd selling a socialist newspaper. In fact, he had been selling socialist newspapers since the 1960s, every week and at all major demonstrations in whatever city he was living in.

Green Left #1067 – August 28, 2015
By Jim McIlroy & Dave Holmes

John Percy, veteran socialist, died on August 19 in Sydney, aged 69. He was a co-founder of the revolutionary youth organisation Resistance and the Socialist Workers Party, later the Democratic Socialist Party.

John, together with his brother Jim, began his political career as a student activist at Sydney University in the mid-1960s in the growing movement against the Vietnam War.

Pacific Edge – August 26, 2015
By Russ Grayson

We said goodbye to John yesterday afternoon. Around 100 gathered in the restored Art Deco ambience of a room in Erskineville Town Hall to hear reflections on John Percy’s life from his family and from those who had worked with him over his 50 years of activism.

Red Flag – October 31, 2013
By Jorge Jorquera

The following speech was delivered by Jorge Jorquera at a memorial celebration for Doug Lorimer, held in Melbourne on 25 October. Doug was a revolutionary for all of his adult life, a leader of the Socialist Workers Party, which became the Democratic Socialist Party, and more recently the Revolutionary Socialist Party – which fused with Socialist Alternative earlier this year.

Green Left Weekly #975 – July 26, 2013
By Pat Brewer

Doug Lorimer, a life-long committed revolutionary, died on July 21 in Sydney after a year of fighting deteriorating ill health and long term hospitalisation.

Lorimer was born April 17, 1953 in Dundee in Scotland and migrated to Australia with his parents Connie and Bill when he was four years old to settle in the South Australian steel town of Whyalla.

Red Flag – July 24, 2013
By John Percy

The Australian left has lost one of its outstanding revolutionary comrades. Doug Lorimer, a committed socialist activist for 42 years and a remarkable writer and educator in the ideas of Marxism, died in Sydney on 21 July after a year of deteriorating health. Doug dedicated his whole life to the fight for socialism and the struggle to build a revolutionary party that will be needed to win it.

Sydney 2007
By John Percy

We mourn our friend and our comrade Gail, who lost her valiant battle against cancer on July 2. It’s so sad, a life cut short. But it was a life well-lived, a proud life, a productive life, a life on the side of the poor and oppressed of the world. Gail was such an inspiration to others, with her 40 plus years of struggle. She never gave in. She never accepted the injustices, the crimes, the rottenness of the system.

Green Left Weekly #692 – November 24, 2006
By John Percy

New York – Memorial meetings were held on November 11 in Oakland, California, and on November 18 in New York City to celebrate the life of revolutionary socialist and union activist Caroline Lund. She died on October 14 from ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Green Left Weekly #688 – October 21, 2006
By John Percy

Caroline Lund, a lifelong fighter for socialism, workers’ rights and women’s liberation, died at her home in Oakland, California, on October 14, aged 62. She will be sorely missed by her friends and comrades in the US and around the world, especially her lifelong partner and comrade Barry Sheppard.