Clara Fraser; Social and Union Activist

Clara Fraser, 74, social activist who fought for rights for women, minorities, union workers, gays and prisoners. A native of Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles, Fraser studied literature and education at UCLA and worked briefly as a Hollywood screenwriter. She joined the Socialist Workers Party and soon moved to Seattle to help build its branch there, later leading it to secede and become the separate Freedom Socialist Party. She worked at Boeing Aircraft, where she sought women’s and minority rights in the unions. In 1967, she helped found the group Radical Women to train working-class women to fight poverty, racism and sexism. Fraser led that group and others in Washington state’s first abortion rights demonstration. She was fired from Seattle City Light for leading a wildcat strike against the utility, but won reinstatement after seven years of litigation over discrimination. Columns that Fraser wrote for the Freedom Socialist newspaper and other writings and speeches have been collected into a new book titled “Revolution, She Wrote.” On Feb. 24 in Seattle of emphysema.