On behalf of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America, the Editorial Board of Rally, Comrades! commemorates the life and revolutionary contribution of Sheridan Talbott, comrade, teacher, loving husband and father.
Born in 1944, Sheridan Talbott grew up in a rough working-class neighborhood in Mobile, Alabama. Toughened by the Catholic school that he attended as a youth, Sheridan developed into a true proletarian intellectual. After graduating from the University of South Alabama with a degree in philosophy, he attended Southern Illinois University. He completed all of his course work for a Masters degree on Karl Marx, but left SIU-C in protest over changes in their doctoral requirements.
At that time the world was in turmoil, particularly in the South, and Sheridan began to look outside the walls of the University for answers to how he could be a part of transforming society in a fundamental way. He returned to Mobile, Alabama in the 1970s and began working in a factory, and through his writing and speaking out influenced and united white workers and black workers in their fight for control of their union.
Sheridan went on to continue his quest, eventually returning to southern Illinois in 1981, grounding himself in the working class, plying his trade as a carpenter. He also worked as a substitute school teacher, relishing the opportunity to impart his knowledge of history, science, and literature to the youth. In 2007, he joined the League of Revolutionaries for a New America and up until his death never stopped teaching those around him.
Sheridan and his wife Cathy grasped and held on to what is key for any revolutionary: that in order to really build a revolutionary movement and a revolutionary organization, you had to center it around a press. Rally, Comrades! became a vital part of their work in Southern Illinois, and they used it to teach about the need to replace this system with one that meets the needs of the people, and how that age-old vision can be realized.
Sheridan Talbott will truly be missed, but his legacy is an inspiration on which we can build. We mourn his passing, but we also celebrate his life.
– The Editorial Board of Rally, Comrades! League of Revolutionaries for a New America
May/June 2013. Vol23.Ed3
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
P.O. Box 477113 Chicago, IL 60647 rally@lrna.org
Free to reproduce unless otherwise marked.
Please include this message with any reproduction.
