Tim Sampson, onzanizer for justice. (Tim Sampson 1935-2001).(Brief Article)(Obituary)

TIM SAMPSON, organizer and fighter for justice, cancer at his Oakland home on December 24, 2001.

A 30-year member of the faculty at San Francisco State University (SFSU), Sampson was deeply involved in many of the important progressive movements of his time, including farmworker struggles, welfare rights, racial justice, utility regulation, workers' rights, and environmental and social justice.

He trained hundreds of organizers working with the National Welfare Rights Organization, labor unions, senior organizing and community groups, the Legal Services Corporation, Highlander Center in Tennessee, and in his popular organizing classes in the Social Work department at SFSU.

He was part of the organizing committee of the National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support, housed at the Center for Community Change in Washington, D.C. He was a founding director of the Applied Research Center, a racial justice think tank based in Oakland, and a long-term board member of the Center for Third World Organizing, where he utilized his teaching and mentoring skills to work with young organizers of color.

Many of the people he worked with have gone on to found and staff organizations and movements for justice. His roots were in the organizing tradition of Saul Alinsky (who was a childhood friend of Tim's father, Jerome Sampson), Fred Ross, Sr., and Cesar Chavez.

Tim was often seen on picket lines supporting workers' efforts to organize and win fair contracts. He sang with the Rockin' Solidarity Labor Chorus and the Freedom Song Network. He held statewide office in the California Faculty Association, and was ...