Clara Fraser was a feminist, advocate for labour and civil rights and an author. She co-authored Revolutionary Integration, an analysis of the Black freedom struggle. She taught socialist economics courses in Vancouver in the late 1950s and early 1960s. She was raised in East Los Angeles by Jewish immigrant parents, studied literature at UCLA, worked briefly as a screenwriter, then joined the Socialist Workers Party. In 1946, she moved to Seattle to help build its branch there. In 1967, she and her friend Gloria Martin co-founded Radical Women, to teach young women leadership skills and working-class consciousness. In the United States, she is known for beating Seattle City Light in a 7-year sex and political discrimination case. The utility had fired her for taking a leading role in an 11-day strike. Fraser also helped write Washington state's first divorce-reform bill, led Washington state's first abortion rights rally, fought on behalf of tribal fishing rights, protested apartheid in South Africa, campaigned for childcare and defended the Black Panther Party. She wrote a regular column for the Freedom Socialist newspaper, which is collected in her book Revolution, She Wrote. She died in Seattle on February 24, 1998.

[BCBW 2003]