An American Hero Activist Betsy Malcolm
By Michael Boyajian
Political activist Betsy Malcolm was politically dormant since the 1960s a time when she likes to say “politics was in the air.” Then came the Bush Jr. years and by the second term she had jump started her activism.
Just prior to that and like many of us she was disillusioned by what America had become under Bush and was looking to retreat to another place away from the troubles here. Her dream escape became Australia but then she decided to stay and fight because she felt guilty in part for throwing herself a birthday party one election day instead of working that day to pull the vote.
A friend told Betsy about the Community Free Democrats and the lifelong Democrat took to the political streets. By the time the 2008 election cycle started she quickly moved from the Edwards column to the Obama camp and found herself making trips from her upper Westside Manhattan enclave to places like Virginia and Pennsylvania getting out the vote for Obama.
After the election she traveled to D.C. for the inauguration thrilled by his victory. Betsy believes the president is doing a good job under difficult circumstances but wishes he had closed Guantanamo. She was feeling a little down after the high of the election and went to a Marriage Equality New York event at which Senator Eric Adams was speaking and was inspired to get involved with MENY. It was Pride Month and she jumped into the cause taking charge of the district coordinators program which assigned workers to senate districts to convince certain senators to vote for marriage equality.
She is now a VP on the MENY PAC Board and is happy as such because MENY was bipartisan but the pac allows her to wear her political colors. She works under the instruction of pac president Jeff Friedman and he has taught her more about the senate then she ever thought she would know and about local politics and grassroots organizing.
Now her son is going to college and she finds herself an empty nester ending her job as mom. She let her law license go this year but has not practiced in 20 years since the birth of her older son and would feel incompetent as a lawyer at this time in her life. But MENY fills her time and allows her to not have to reinvent herself and so she has devoted herself to the cause saying that generally the nicest people she has met are the political volunteers of the world who one pundit said, “keep democracy going and work for free.”
Today she hosts fundraisers for candidates and contributes to them as well focusing on pro marriage equality senatorial hopefuls including attorney general candidate Eric Schneiderman. She has worked with Didi Barrett who is running against Stephen Saland in the Hudson Valley and Lynn Nunes who is facing off against Shirley Huntley in Queens. And let us not forget Charlie Ramos who is taking on notorious homophobe Ruben Diaz and also Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter who is challenging the infamous Senator Espada and finally her friend Jeremiah Frei-Pearson who is running for assembly.
She is now an active member of the Three Parks Democratic Club and finds this group to be very congenial and that is the story of one person, one activist. Imagine what a million Betsy Malcolms could do for this country and that is why she is an American hero like so many other political workers who give it their all asking for nothing in return but taking satisfaction when the good guys win.
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