by RFC Founder, Robert Meeropol
(photo credit Shiloh Crawford III)
Attorney Elizabeth (Liz) Fink, aged 70, died of kidney failure and heart complications last September. I got to know Liz during the “Ohio Seven” trial that took place in Springfield, MA in 1988-89. The defendants, six of whom were already serving lengthy sentences, were charged with Seditious Conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government. The three married couples in the group (with nine children between them) faced additional, multi-decade sentences.
I’d just left a Springfield law firm, and at the age of 41, was trying to figure out what to do next. So I did some research for the legal team. One conversation I had with Liz at that time stands out. She said our opponents were powerful. “We couldn’t stop them from killing Ethel and Julius, but it is our job to make them pay.” I thought, what an apt description of what my brother and I had done by reopening our parents’ case. I mulled over how I could make them pay more.
Months later, Liz’s comment, coupled with what I learned about how the authorities had terrorized the Ohio Seven’s children, jelled into the RFC concept: to help the children of political prisoners, like the those of the Ohio Seven. Thanks to Liz and her co-counsel, the defendants were acquitted and the concept of the RFC had been born. Liz also worked for almost twenty years to gain compensation for the victims of the New York State Police massacre of 39 prisoners at the end of the Attica prison uprising. After winning the settlement, she made the largest single contribution ever given to our prison visit program, which we promptly renamed “The Attica Prison Visit Fund.”
This fund provides travel expenses for children to visit imprisoned activist parents or grandparents. Before receiving Liz’s gift we could only provide grants to a couple of families annually. But in the wake of Liz’s substantial donation (and additional, key gifts from several other supporters), we’ve been able to award $261,647 in Attica grants for hundreds of visits.
Liz Fink was one of the unsung heroes of the Rosenberg Fund for Children, and she will always be a hero of mine as well.