Reese Erlich (second from left) recently passed away. He was a contributor to The Progressive since the 1980s.
Reese Erlich was a journalist who traveled the world with a driving sense of curiosity, filing dispatches for various news outlets. His first byline in The Progressive appeared in 1987, but most of the work he did for the magazine, both in print and online, was during the last decade or so, including, for the past several years, a twice-monthly web column called “Foreign Correspondent.”
In late March, Erlich filed what he knew would be his final column, as cancer closed in on him. He died in Oakland, California, on April 6, at age seventy-three. He reflected on a career that spanned seven decades, with groundbreaking reporting from Cuba, Iran, Bolivia, Russia, and Syria, among other places.
“I hope I’ve helped explain some complicated world issues,” he wrote. “I hope the activism earlier in my life and my writing and speeches later have helped bring about progressive change.”
A commitment to truth, justice, and the common good defines the writers who have for more than 112 years graced the pages of The Progressive. They write because they care; their goal is entirely immodest: to change the world.
At a memorial service conducted via Zoom in early May, Erlich’s family and friends recalled his life and legacy: being part of an important anti-draft protest in the 1960s, working with Walter Cronkite, and writing several books.
“He was a true inspiration,” said former New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer. “Reese was a person who didn’t want to report about policy. He wanted to report about people.” But his reporting was political, and it had an edge: “Reese devoted himself to exposing the lies on which foreign policy is based.”
Or, as Robert Scheer expressed it, “He knew that if you got history wrong, people got hurt.”
Everything about Reese Erlich’s approach to journalism is admirable. But it occurs to me that it is not unusual. A commitment to truth, justice, and the common good defines the writers who have for more than 112 years graced the pages of The Progressive. They write because they care; their goal is entirely immodest: to change the world.
It’s true as well of the contributors to this issue, which looks at possible fixes to longstanding problems. Victoria Law writes about conviction integrity units that give hope to the wrongfully incarcerated. Eleanor Bader highlights the need to protect domestic workers from exploitation. Kalena Thomhave explores the promise of programs that meet people’s basic needs by providing guaranteed incomes. Teresa Albano reports on a wave of progressive legislation springing up in Illinois, including an end to cash bail and a program to provide reparations to Black residents.
Henry Cisneros, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1993 to 1997 and the former mayor of San Antonio, Texas, joins with William Fulton, the former mayor of Ventura, California, to tout the nation’s critical need to invest in infrastructure. Mike Ervin calls for spending less on nursing homes, which remain the sole housing option available to some people with disabilities. Jeff Bryant explores the promise of community schools. And Malcolm James Mitchell, the great-nephew of James Baldwin, whose shattering 1962 essay, “A Letter to My Nephew” (Mitchell’s father), was first published in The Progressive, offers some advice to his fellow Black chefs on how to resist racial injustice.
I write about the challenges facing the U.S. Postal Service, made worse by those (including Postmaster General Louis DeJoy) who seek to advance the fortunes of its private, for-profit competitors. And John Nichols profiles the inestimable Nina Turner, one of the truest progressives in the land.
Finally, let me call your attention to “Flirting with Disaster,” a remarkable piece by Joy Loving about a natural disaster that occurred in her hometown of Massies Mill, Virginia, in 1969, well before she was born. She uncovers an astonishing story of two survivors who lost everything before they found each other. It is, she writes, “a precursor of tragedy to come on a planet in which the climate crisis has made severe weather deadlier and more frequent.”
Thanks to all our contributors for their passion and commitment. One of The Progressive’s highest purposes is providing a forum for their work.
Bill Lueders
Editor