In 1968, sanitation workers took to the streets of Memphis, Tennessee, bearing signs declaring “I AM A MAN,” a slogan that Bill Lucy helped create as he played a pivotal role in the historic strike.
A few years later, Lucy began serving as AFSCME’s secretary-treasurer — a position he would hold for 40 years — and founded the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. He was a powerful voice in the fight against South African apartheid, bringing Nelson Mandela to the United States soon after he was released from prison.
On Monday, leaders of the labor and civil rights movements gathered in Washington, D.C., to pay homage to Lucy and celebrate his life and legacy. Lucy died last September.
“I wouldn’t hold this position if not for the trails blazed by Bill Lucy,” said AFSCME President Lee Saunders, kicking off the celebration of life event. He went on to detail Lucy’s life as a leader at AFSCME and throughout the labor movement.
Saunders also spoke of his decades-long friendship with Lucy, and how he hoped we would all learn from his example.
“What I think I’ll remember most about Bill was his grace, decency and integrity,” Saunders said. “But you would never mistake his even temperament for complacency. Bill was a person of the deepest possible convictions — tenacious, passionate, fearless about speaking truth to power.”
Other labor leaders spoke about their admiration for Lucy.
Fred Redmond, the secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, said Lucy treated people with “dignity and respect — and he commanded dignity and respect in return.” Redmond, who was the first Black person elected as an officer of the United Steelworkers, called Lucy “the conscience of the labor movement.”
Cecelie Counts spoke of Lucy’s commitment to transforming the United States’ foreign policy toward Africa. Counts, the former political director of TransAfrica, an African American–led organization founded with Lucy’s help, said Lucy “helped lead the Free South Africa Movement, which used civil disobedience and daily demonstrations to take lobbying to an entirely new level.”
Former AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker spoke of the inspiration she found in Lucy when she was a young organizer at AFSCME.
“For a young black woman who had migrated to Los Angeles from Fort Worth,” she said, “meeting Bill Lucy for me meant facing the hope and pain of 1968, but more importantly it meant the possibilities.”
Two of Lucy’s children, Benita Marsh and Phyllis Lucy, spoke at the memorial service.
Marsh talked of going to her father’s speeches, always sitting in the same seat in the last row on the left side.
“He’d lean back in his chair and looked at me to get my impression of his speech,” she recalled. "It was always exciting to be around dad and listening to people as they shared ideas about change."
Phyllis Lucy said of her father, “They say we are influenced by our first teachers, our parents, and dad instilled in me the importance of being an agent for change. He always said, ‘I don’t need a thank you, I need you to pass it along to someone else.’”
The celebration of life closed with remarks from AFSCME’s current secretary-treasurer, Elissa McBride, who said Lucy “set the bar high for the secretary-treasurer role at AFSCME and to this day, you can see and feel his impact in the work that we do.”
“May each of us live up to his expectations and aspirations for our movement,” she said. “In words, courage, character and deeds.”