24 Facts About Clara Fraser

Clara Fraser was a socialist feminist political organizer, who co-founded and led the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women.

Clara Fraser was born in 1923 to Jewish immigrant parents in multi-ethnic, working class East Los Angeles.

Clara Fraser's father, Samuel Goodman, was a Teamster and anarchist.

Clara Fraser's mother, Emma Goodman, was a garment worker and later a Business Agent of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.

Clara Fraser joined the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party that year.

Clara Fraser moved to Chicago and participated in a union drive at a department store.

Clara Fraser worked with her then-husband, Richard S Fraser, in developing Revolutionary Integration to explain the interdependence of the struggles for socialism and African American freedom and argue the key importance of Black leadership for the US working class.

In 1967, Clara Fraser formed Radical Women, along with Gloria Martin and young women of the New Left.

Clara Fraser took a job as a receptionist in a psychologist's office, where her communist affiliations were accepted, and worked there for seven years.

Clara Fraser was then hired as a job coordinator for a federal anti-poverty program, where she worked until she was recruited by Seattle City Light.

In 1973, Clara Fraser began work at Seattle City Light as a training and education coordinator.

Clara Fraser was charged with designing and implementing an all-female Electrical Trades Trainee affirmative action program to integrate women into the trades.

Clara Fraser's hiring and the creation of an all-female ETT program was a calculated political move by Gordon Vickery, the superintendent of City Light at the time.

Vickery and Uhlman chose to hire Clara Fraser, a known radical, to implement a successful program for a few women in the hopes of avoiding discrimination lawsuits like the ones filed against the city by Black workers in the late 1960s.

In redesigning the program, Clara Fraser diverted from strategies employed by an earlier series of failed affirmative action programs at City Light for Black men.

Over 1000 people participated, and the support of mostly female non-unionized clerical workers, organized by Clara Fraser, was essential to the walkout's success.

Clara Fraser was removed from her position as the ETT coordinator, and a paper trail of memos revealed increased micro-management from Vickery and her superiors.

Clara Fraser was laid off without notice in July 1975, officially due to budget cuts, but the move was largely seen as an act of retaliation.

Originally, Clara Fraser was refused unemployment benefits and ordered to pay back severance fees she had already received.

In June 1976, the training and education coordinator position that Clara Fraser had occupied was refilled by a man who had less experience.

Clara Fraser returned to her former job at City Light just as a new furor broke out over discrimination against women in non-traditional trades.

Clara Fraser demanded FSP minutes, membership lists, and names of contributors.

Clara Fraser had emphasized that a feminism focused only on feminism would be insufficient, and thought that ultimately, it wouldn't realize its own goals.

Clara Fraser expresses many of her views in her book Revolution, She Wrote.