Appeal for support to Allen Cooper’s Caregiver

Appeal for Donations to Support Allen Cooper’s Caregiver

 August 8, 2020
Hello Dear friends and Relatives,

Hope all is well during these trying times. I and others close to Allen Cooper are reaching out to you for support for a very important cause. In life, many times we have given beyond our expectations, perhaps even sacrificing our life for a noble cause we might believe in. Unselfishly sometimes we might have even been willing to give our life for what we believe is right and just for others. 

 Which is why we are seeking your financial support for a noble cause: to cover $6,000 in expenses incurred and associated with the 24/7 care of 83-year-old Allen Cooper over the last five months. His care over that time involved physical, emotional, and spiritual healing, as well as upkeep of Allen's house where he lived with his caregiver.  Allen has recently moved to the Veterans Care Facility in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, and is receiving excellent care as he faces health and cognitive challenges.

 Allen is a rare and compassionate individual who all his life advocated for justice and equality for others less fortunate by demonstrating his warrior veracity, tenacity, and determination by providing guidance, mentoring, and physical protection to many individuals, communities of color, organizations, and indigenous nations.
Allen is a true ALLY in every sense of the word and spiritual meaning.

His work advocating for justice and equality included:

·    Proud Navy Veteran,  1957– 1959 & member of Veterans for Peace, Abq, NM

·    Mississippi Civil Rights and Voting Rights Struggle

·     Honored and Adopted member of the Black Panther Party

·     Wounded Knee Occupation 1973, and defendant (case was dismissed) 

·     Adopted by the Oglala Lakota People

·     United Farm Workers Struggle

·     Big Mountain Diné Community against Forced Relocation

·     Producer, Writer, and Director of hundreds of Television and Radio shows on collective liberation

·     Albuquerque Public School Teacher and Mentor

 
We are humbly asking you to donate to help cover Allen's caretaking expenses of $6,000 (24/7 care at $1,200 per month x (5) months). Our appeal is now projected to extend from August 9 to October 6, 2020.

If you could support our GoFundMe appeal by making a donation and then sharing it with your network, we would greatly appreciate it. We know that money can be tight, so please know that even $5 helps us get closer to our goal! Let us know if you have any questions and we’ll be happy to answer them. 

In gratitude for Allen’s commitment to justice and equality, and for community support for Allen at this time,
Norman Patrick Brown for Friends of Allen F Cooper -Susan Schuurman, Robert Anderson, Peter Clark, Eda Gordon…


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Proclamation of the Albuquerque City Council

Whereas, Allen Fairfax Cooper was born on August 10, 1938, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he was raised,  and has dedicated his life to The Movement for civil rights, and participated in many of the most significant events in U.S. civil rights history; and

Whereas, Allen Cooper served in the U.S. Navy in the 1950s during the Cold War, an experience that spurred him to become a life-long anti-war activist; he supported other veterans by serving on the GI Rights Hotline; and was fired from teaching at Highland High School after 9/11 because he refused to take down artwork drawn by a student refugee from Afghanistan that said “No War”; and

Whereas, Allen Cooper demonstrated his commitment to social justice in the 1960s by marching and committing civil disobedience in the Southern Freedom Movement, as a member of CORE (the Congress of Racial Equality) and SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), and was seriously injured by the KKK while registering African-Americans to vote in Mississippi and Georgia; and

Whereas, Allen Cooper supported the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense by conducting weapons training for BPP members in Oakland, and helped the United Farm Workers expose unfair labor practices by working undercover at a winery in California; and

 Whereas, Allen Cooper answered the call for people to support the American Indian Movement at Wounded Knee in 1973, acquiring a special nick-name from its leader Russell Means; and has shown up in solidarity with Native American demands for justice and equality from Big Mountain to Standing Rock; and

Whereas, Allen Cooper used his local community media platform for decades as host of Espejos de Aztlán on KUNM and the New Mexico IndyMedia Show on public access TV Channel 27 to inform the community about a broad range of social justice issues including U.S. government-funded injustice in Central America and Palestine; environmental threats such as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) and the jet fuel spill at Kirtland Air Force Base; the unsolved murders of the women whose remains were found on the West Mesa, and all peoples oppressed by colonization, U.S. imperialism, and capitalism; and

Whereas, the University of New Mexico’s Center for Southwest Research has created the Allen Cooper Papers archive because of his extensive involvement in civil rights history; and a memoir about his life of activism is forthcoming; and

Whereas, Allen Cooper has stood up and cried out for justice believing that until all of us are free, none are free; and that were it not for recent health challenges, that Allen Cooper would be in the street shoulder-to-shoulder with activists calling out that Black Lives Matter and to defund police and move those funds to community needs; and

Whereas, community members now seek to honor this fearless and courageous Albuquerque resident who has given his heart and soul to the Movement in spite of institutional harassment and surveillance from all levels of government, imprisonment, loss of jobs, and other failed attempts to silence him; therefore,

Be it proclaimed that the Council, the governing body of the City of Albuquerque, hereby recognizes

August 10, 2020 as Allen Cooper Day

 Lan Sena, District 1                                       Cynthia Borrego, District 5

Isaac Benton, District 2                                 Pat Davis, District 6

Klarissa Peña, District 3                                Diane G. Gibson, District 7

Brook Bassan, District 4                               Trudy Jones, District 8

Don Harris, District 9