Remembering Barbara Monahan
On May 11th, 2022, at age 90, Barbara Monahan, passed away in her sleep, a memorial will be held for her in September.
For decades, Barbara steadfastly challenged U.S. foreign and military policy while promoting equal access to healthcare and other human needs services. She always had interesting stories to share for example about the ways she was monitored by both U.S. and Soviet intelligence agenices when she brought students to to Soviet Union during the heights of the cold war.
On the walls of the George Wiley Center we have pictures from past direct actions, including this one with Barbara taking action to decrease barriers to food security. We use these photos to explain the organizing stories behind the victories that won protections and plans through our actions. In the picture above Barbara reminds DHS of their commitment to implement a pilot program that would make it easier for people to fill SNAP applications. Actions like the one above decreased the number of pages in the SNAP application from over 23 pages to 11 pages.
Barbara served as Senior Lecturer from 1968 to 1992 in the Brown University Slavic Department, where she was awarded the Excellence in Teaching (post-secondary) award by the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages. She is the author of A Dictionary of Russian Gesture (1983) and Russia’s Children, Our Children (1996).She taught Russian, while maintaining a critical perspective on global imperialist government policies,
Barbara continued to volunteer for George Wiley Center organizing efforts even while having health issues and suffering in pain. For example she would volunteer to phone banking or members for meetings and actions. We will miss Barbara and her dedication to helping others, despite pain and challenges, we will miss her humor and stories. We are thankful to our volunteers over the generations who make an important difference in our organizing efforts.