56 Years Ago, My Parents Were Executed

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(Click here for video of David Strathairn and Eve Ensler reading the Rosenbergs' last letter to Robby and Michael, on June 19, 1953.)
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June 19, 2009

On this 56th anniversary of my parents’ execution I’d like to write that we’ve finally turned a corner in America. That activists’ children no longer face lengthy separations as their parents are carted off to jail. That the pendulum has dramatically swung away from racial and religious profiling, gender discrimination and fear of the other. But despite some positive movement we all know this is not the case.

I take heart, however, because brave people continue the struggle and, with your help, the Rosenberg Fund for Children (RFC) is there to cushion any blows that might fall upon their kids. And I am buoyed that despite the economic conditions thousands of RFC supporters like you will not give up the fight. Even if you cannot join today’s activists on the front lines, the support you give their children through the RFC empowers those parents.

I want you to know the broad scope of support the RFC offers to so many families. Your dollars reach hundreds of young people whose courageous parents engage in an ever-increasing array of progressive activism. I wish you could have been at our spring granting meetings to share my satisfaction at being able -- with the help of generous supporters like you -- to award over $170,000 to benefit hundreds of children and targeted activist youth.

But you also would have shared our concern at the number of requests for the Fund’s help, that children remain at grave risk, and that the impact of eight years of repression still remains with us.

Your generosity enabled us to award $400,000 last year. I am pleased to report that, because of the hundreds of RFC donors who provided us with tremendous support in response to our newsletter, we have been able to reduce the anticipated cutback in our 2009 granting by $10,000. That is why we were able to award $170,000 this spring instead of the projected $160,000. This is most heartening, but we need you to step forward now with extra help so we can continue this trend.

We’ve made 75 awards this year to families and groups of children. I only have space to focus on two here, but we will describe them all in our next newsletter.

I was four when I visited my father in prison for the first time. I asked him, “Why you no come home?” At three years old, Martin also is too young to understand why his father, Michael, can’t come home. Michael fled to Canada after refusing to fight in Iraq because it was “a war totally based on lies.”

Michael organized against the war in Canada, and married Martin’s mother, a Canadian. In 2008 Michael was deported to the U.S., court marshaled and sentenced to 15 months in prison in California. The RFC is proud to have awarded an Attica Prison Visit Program Grant to enable Martin and his mother to visit this embattled anti-war leader.

Kaylee, a college student from Chicago, was recently arrested and sentenced to 60 days in prison for protesting at the U.S. government’s torture training center for the Latin American military (formerly known as the School of the Americas). Until recently those taking part in symbolic civil disobedience at this disgraceful institution received token punishments for their actions.

Now, Bush-appointed judges, in an effort to intimidate activists, hand out substantial fines and several month sentences. But Kaylee, who has been active in human rights causes including prison and labor reform and immigration rights campaigns, will not be bullied. An RFC Special Travel Award will enable her to participate in a delegation to Paraguay to assess the impact of the School of the Americas on that country. Through this grant the entire RFC community has facilitated her continuing progressive activism.

I chose to highlight just these two examples from the wide array of progressive movements in which our beneficiary families are involved, because we must do all that we can to prevent our children from growing up in a country that tortures and because the war in Iraq continues despite promises to the contrary. (To learn more about the multifaceted range of our awards, see the grant descriptions in our newsletters. )

In response to almost a decade of our government’s accelerated drive for world domination that has wreaked global havoc, we have helped the children of those targeted for resisting these new imperial ambitions. We’ve assisted kids whose parents have opposed the racial and religious profiling of Muslim communities in the U.S. We also have expanded our support for environmental and animal rights advocates who face a new wave of repression.

Even as a very young child during the McCarthy period I sensed the apprehension that permeated progressive communities. Today, despite the new administration’s rhetoric of hope, there is still palpable fear in communities as disparate as those of Central American immigrants, Muslims and environmentalists. When you contribute to the RFC you are rallying around those who are targeted. That is exactly what we do and it is exactly what our beneficiaries need. They urgently require the financial assistance of all our supporters at this time.

We already have awarded over $170,000 this year. That’s more than we projected for the first half of 2009, but it remains below the level we reached in 2008. Any donation you make will keep us from falling further behind, and if you make an extra-special donation, it will help us to catch up. That’s why we need you to dig deep now.

Finally, there is an additional reason why I make this personal appeal to you today. For nineteen years I have worked to transform what happened to my family into something to benefit other families. Today, I ask you to help by clicking here to make a special, tax-deductible donation to the RFC on this 56th anniversary of my parents’ execution. I know you will be most generous.

Those we assist are depending upon you,

Robert Meeropol
Executive Director