Ten years ago: David Brower

The Sierra Club that David Brower joined in 1933 was a friendly group of outdoors enthusiasts; he became a leader in the outings program. Three decades later, the organization he ultimately led was drawing the wrath of the IRS (for political advocating as a nonprofit) in a fight against putting dams in the Grand Canyon -- a fight the Sierra Club won, obviously. On the flip side, his great regret was acquiescing to the Glen Canyon Dam that created Lake Powell. 

Brower's rise tracked a basic shift in the American posture toward wilderness. He had shepherded a conservationism of leisure into a robust, disciplined political force.

Brower wasn't just an activist or an executive. He was an inventor, an oracle (as his lively Times obituary by John Balzar puts it), a vivid and charismatic prototype of what we now think of as the environmentalist. The obituary places Brower in the company of John Muir, Rachel Carson and the philosopher Aldo Leopold as the "four towering figures" of the 20th century environmental movement. Martin Litton, a fellow crusader, called Brower, "in his time, the soul of the movement to save the Earth."

But his biography isn't all steely passion or first-up-the-mountain triumph. Brower was good at getting fired -- it happened at least three times, including at the Sierra Club and then at Friends of the Earth, which he founded to "make the Sierra Club appear reasonable." And when a friend asked him about a quotation inscribed at the National Aquarium -- "We do not inherit the Earth from our fathers, we are borrowing it from our children" -- Brower didn't recognize the words as his. He later figured out he had uttered them in "an interview that had taken place in a North Carolina bar so noisy I could only marvel that I was heard at all. Possibly, I didn't remember saying it because by then they had me on my third martini."

David Brower was 88 when he died of cancer on Nov. 5, 2000.

-- Michael Owen

Photo: David Brower, climbing a Pinnacles National Monument formation in the Salinas Valley in 1934. Credit: Brower family collection

One year ago: John Harris Burt

John Harris Burt was a rector at Pasadena's All Saints Episcopal Church who was known for his outspoken support of the civil rights movement during the days of Martin Luther King Jr.'s crusade. Burt died one year ago at age 91.

Burt helped organize massive civil rights rallies in Los Angeles in the 1960s, including a 1963 event in South Los Angeles that attracted 30,000 people. He also was a vocal supporter of Cesar Chavez and the farm workers movement. 

Twice Burt sat behind King while he addressed crowds of thousands in L.A. -- once in 1963 at South L.A.'s Wrigley Field (now demolished), and a year later at the Coliseum. 

Burt was one of four rectors "who really shaped All Saints to be a peace-and-justice church," said Rector J. Edwin Bacon, who currently leads the Pasadena church, which is known for the strong stands its clergy has taken against war, poverty and racial and ethnic discrimination over the last seven decades.

Burt was a Navy chaplain during World War II and afterward served at St. John's Episcopal Church in Youngstown, Ohio. In 1978, after leaving Pasadena to serve as bishop of Ohio, he earned the prestigious Thomas Merton Award for his advocacy to keep steel plants open in Youngstown, an effort that ultimately failed.

For more on his life and causes, read John Harris Burt's obituary by The Times.

-- Michael Farr

Upper photo: The Rev. John Burt, seated at fourth from the left, listens as Martin Luther King Jr. addresses 15,000 people at the Coliseum during an interfaith rally in 1964. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Lower photo: Burt in Ohio. Credit: Episcopal Diocese of Ohio

Mildred Jefferson, anti-abortion activist, dies at 84

Mildred Jefferson, the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School and a nationally recognized leader of the anti-abortion movement, died Friday in Cambridge, Mass. She was 84.

Anne Fox, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, said Jefferson died after a recent illness.

Jefferson helped establish the National Right to Life Committee and was its at-large director when she died. She previously had served as the organization's president.

Jefferson was born in Pittsburg, Texas, in 1926, the daughter of a schoolteacher and a minister. She graduated from Texas College in Tyler and earned a master's degree from Tufts University in Medford, Mass.

Jefferson also had taught as an assistant clinical professor of surgery at Boston University Medical School.

-- Associated Press

One year ago: Collin Wilcox Paxton

Collin Wilcox Paxton, who played the poor Southern white girl who falsely accuses a black man of raping her in the 1962 film adaptation of the novel "To Kill a Mockingbird," recalls receiving unfriendly looks when she appeared to speak at an NAACP conference. An official had to remind the crowd that "she is not the character in the film."

Paxton, who spent her life acting and advocating for desegregation, died one year ago of brain cancer at her home in Highlands, N.C. She was 74.

Paxton said she believed she could play the character of Mayella because she understood both sides of the racism issue and the culture from which her character would have come. She once recalled that the other girls auditioning for the role were overly made up, while she intentionally dressed in worn-down clothes that better reflected the character's background.

Both Paxton and Brock Peters, who played the accused black man in the film, were involved in the civil rights movement and the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

"On the set, there was a main feeling that we were making a film that had meaning, had something to say," she recalled. "But no one ever expected or anticipated the kind of impact the film actually created."

In addition to "To Kill a Mockingbird," Paxton also made appearances on Broadway and as a guest star in a variety of TV shows.

For more on her career, read Collin Wilcox Paxton's obituary by The Times.

--Michael Farr

Photo: Collin Wilcox Paxton. Credit: Eric Skipsey

Joan Sutherland, opera singer, dies at 83

 The family of soprano Joan Sutherland says the Australian-born opera singer has died. She was 83.

The celebrated singer, known to her Italian fans as "La Stupenda," died Sunday at her home, according to a statement released Monday by Sutherland's family.

Sutherland was acclaimed from her native Australia to North America and Europe for the wide range of roles she took on during a career that spanned four decades.

She is survived by her husband, Richard Bonynge, and son Adam.

A complete obituary will be posted later at latimes.com.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Joan Sutherland in a photo from the mid-1990s.

 

One year ago: Mercedes Sosa

  

I was killed a thousand times.
I disappeared a thousand times, and here I am ...
Here I am, out of the ruins the dictatorship left behind.
We're still singing.

So sang Mercedes Sosa, an Argentinian who was the conscience of her country in the face of government repression in "We're Still Singing" and many other folk music pieces.

Sosa, who had liver, kidney and heart ailments, died a year ago at 74.

"It's hard to overestimate her popularity and importance as a standard-bearer of folk music and political engagement through folk music," Jonathan Ritter, an ethnomusicologist, said when she died.

She was officially harassed by the right-wing nationalist junta that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983 and lived in exile for a time in Europe.

When she returned home shortly before the dictatorship crumbled, she found that her popularity had reached dramatic new heights.

To learn more about Sosa's life, read the obituary that ran Oct. 4, 2009.

-- Valerie J. Nelson

Photo: Mercedes Sosa's career spanned five decades. Credit: Damian Neustadt /Associated Press

One year ago: Nancy M. Daly

Nancy M. Daly was a stay-at-home mom of three and wife of a prominent entertainment executive when she made a life-changing visit to MacLaren's Children's Center in El Monte in the late 1970s. The former probation center had been converted into a juvenile protection facility with little attention paid to making it less prison-like. "The kids looked sad," Daly recalled years later," and I found it almost unbearable."

Her determination to improve conditions at MacLaren's (which closed in 2003) turned her into a formidable children's advocate. In 1979, with allies such as actor Henry Winkler, she helped found United Friends of the Children to support youngsters in foster care. She successfully lobbied for the creation of what is now the county Department of Children and Family Services and served on its advisory commission. She later helped launch the Children's Action Network, which sought to raise awareness of children's issues in the entertainment industry and lobbied for legislation in Sacramento and Washington. She also served on the nonpartisan President's Commission on Children.

"She was the central, most important person on the commission for adolescence and foster care and the transition from foster care to adulthood," fellow commissioner Donald Cohen of the Yale Child Study Center said of Daly in 1994.

Daly, who was married to former Los Angeles Mayor Richard J. Riordanafter her first marriage to former Warner Bros. chief executive Bob Daly ended in divorce, was also a philanthropist and arts leader. She died one year ago at 68.

For more on Nancy Daly, read Times staff writer Jean Merl's obituary.

One year ago: Harriet Allen

Desert-loving Californians have a hero in Harriet Allen, an environmentalist who mentored generations of desert activists and played a key role in the 1994 passage of the landmark California Desert Protection Act. She died one year ago at age 95.

The Desert Protection Act, signed by President Clinton, made 8 million acres of Southern California desert land off-limits to developers and designated Death Valley and Joshua Tree national monuments as national parks.

Her dedication to protecting the desert was such that Allen once took options on land that could specifically help save the bighorn sheep in a state park area, according to park rangers.

"She waged a decades-long battle to educate everyone that the desert matters," said Elden Hughes, a longtime desert-protection activist. "The fact that the desert has sustained itself as well as it has is a tribute to Harriet Allen. She deserves a big chunk of the credit."

Allen was active in the Sierra Club, joining in the 1930s and serving as chair of its San Diego chapter in 1963. She also was appointed by California Gov. Jerry Brown to the state's Coastal Commission.

When her two younger brothers joined the Navy during World War II, Allen decided to join the WAVES, a division of the Navy made up of women.

For more on the desert protector, read Harriet Allen's obituary by The Times.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Harriet Allen with her two younger brothers. All three served in the Navy during World War II. Credit: Handout

 

One year ago: Mary Travers

Mary Travers, who performed in the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary in the 1960s, helped create the archetype of the female folk singer that survives today. She died one year ago from the side effects of the chemotherapy she was receiving for leukemia.

Travers, Peter Yarrow and Noel "Paul" Stookey brought a political and socially conscious edge to their music, making Top 10 pop hits out of “If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)," written the previous decade by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays of the Weavers, and Bob Dylan's “Blowin’ in the Wind."

The threesome earned numerous gold and platinum records and five Grammy Awards.

They also had a major hit with the children's song “Puff (the Magic Dragon),” which at one time was thought to contain a thinly veiled message about marijuana. Travers insisted that it was innocent, however, and "just a song about growing up."

Peter, Paul and Mary's commercial success dwindled as the '60s rolled on, and the trio disbanded in 1970 to pursue solo projects, then reunited in 1978 and continued touring regularly until Travers became too ill.

For more on the clarion-voiced folk singer, read Mary Travers' full obituary by Times pop music writer Randy Lewis.

--Michael Farr

Photo: Mary Travers performs with Paul Stookey, left, and Peter Yarrow as the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary in 1962. Credit: Warner Bros.

Juan Mari Bras, Puerto Rican independence activist, dies at 82

Juan Mari Bras, 82, an elder statesman of Puerto Rico's independence movement who gave up U.S. citizenship in an act that inspired hundreds of other activists, died Friday at his home in the San Juan suburb of Rio Piedras. He had lung cancer and had recently taken a fall, said Elaine Mulet Hocking, a spokeswoman for his Hostosiano independence movement.

A writer and law professor, Mari Bras was deeply involved in the independence cause from his days as a teenage student activist in the 1940s. He founded the Puerto Rican Socialist Party and was a co-founder of the small but influential Independence Party.

He dedicated his later years to seeking unity among the various pro-independence factions in Puerto Rico, a U.S. Caribbean territory whose 4 million residents are American citizens but cannot vote for president.

Gov. Luis Fortuno, who represents the opposite end of Puerto Rico's political spectrum as leader of the pro-statehood party, issued a statement praising Mari Bras as a legendary leader who fought for his ideals.

In an effort to establish Puerto Ricans' separate national identity, Mari Bras traveled to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1994 and renounced his American citizenship while claiming the right to continue living in Puerto Rico. His actions inspired other "independentistas" to do the same.

The State Department initially approved Mari Bras' petition, but reversed its decision in 1998, the centennial year of the U.S. invasion that resulted in the seizure of Puerto Rico from Spain. U.S. officials told Mari Bras he was again a U.S. citizen because he hadn't registered as a resident alien.

As the result of legal challenges stemming from that case, the island government in 2007 issued its first certificate of Puerto Rican citizenship to Mari Bras. Some other islanders have also requested the document, which is valid as an ID on the island but not recognized as a travel document outside the island given that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.

Mari Bras also became the first Puerto Rican to lobby the United Nations for the island's independence in 1973, kicking off what has become a tradition at the U.N.’s special committee on decolonization.

The Independence Party typically receives less than 5% of the vote, with most islanders split between supporting statehood for Puerto Rico and the status quo as a U.S. commonwealth.

Mari Bras was born in the west-coast city of Mayaguez on Dec. 2, 1927, and graduated from American University Law School in Washington.

He is survived by his wife and five children. Another child, Santiago Mari Pesquera, was murdered in 1976 while Mari Bras was campaigning for governor on a Socialist Party ticket. The family has expressed suspicions that he was slain in reprisal for his father's political activism, but the case was never solved.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Jose Mari Bras in 2007. Credit: Thais Llorca / EPA

Services set for Mario Obledo, former state secretary of health and welfare

A public memorial service will be held in Sacramento this week for Mario Obledo, former California secretary of health and welfare in Jerry Brown's administration, who died of a heart attack Wednesday at 78.

Sometimes called the “Godfather of the Latino Movement," Obledo served in the Brown cabinet from 1975 to 1982. He co-founded the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and later directed the League of United Latin American Citizens as national president. In 1998 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton.

A Mass will be held at 5 p.m. Thursday, followed by a rosary at 7 p.m. and a public viewing through midnight. A funeral mass will be held Friday at 9 a.m.

All services will be held at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, 1017 11th St., Sacramento.

--Elaine Woo

Caption: Mario Obledo in 1975. Credit: Associated Press

 

Mario Obledo, Latino activist and MALDEF co-founder, dies at 78

Mario Obledo, the president of the National Coalition of Hispanic Organizations and California's former secretary of health and welfare, has died. He was 78.

Obledo died Wednesday in Sacramento after having a heart attack, said his wife, Keda Alcala-Obledo.

During his career, Obledo was known for his efforts in supporting civil rights and humanitarian causes.

In 1998 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award, the nation's highest civilian award, by President Clinton.

While serving as Gov. Jerry Brown's secretary of health and welfare from 1975 to 1982, he was credited with encouraging Latinos to enter state government.

Obledo also was co-founder of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, or MALDEF, and the Hispanic National Bar Assn.

-- Associated Press