Home » About » Newsletters » May 1998
Remembering Three Civil Libertarians
Long time ACLU activist Myron "Myke" Marks died suddenly while playing tennis on May 15. Over the years, Myke served the ACLU as a cooperating attorney, board member and fundraiser. A University of Miami Law School graduate, Myke was denied admission to the Florida Bar for many years due to the political persecution of the McCarthy era. He was a passionate defender of free speech, and he was active as an ACLU cooperating attorney defending those protesting the Vietnam war.
A moving memorial service was held for family and friends at the beautiful home, and in the magnificent gardens, that was Myke and his wife Jean's labor of love. Speaking at the memorial with other friends and family members, Jim Mullins, longtime ACLU leader, called Myke Marks his "mentor, confidant and hero." "He had a burning desire to banish injustice, was a lawyer's lawyer but never lost sight of his humanity or of those who crossed his path from every station in life. His friends were legion and we will all miss him terribly."
Jean has asked that Myke's passion for social justice and freedom of speech be remembered by donations to either the Southern Poverty Law Center or the ACLU Foundation for support of the First Amendment.
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ACLU of Florida board member Annette Van Howe died on March 17 from complications from a stroke. Annette was one of South Florida's best known feminists, and she will be remembered by friends and family members for her passion and tireless commitment to women's rights. Her lifelong activism began in Chicago in 1941. Unhappy with women's pay at the Wilson meat packing plant, she circled the plant for days, collecting enough signature to force an election to unionize the workers. The Union won.
In 1995, she took part in the United Nations Women's Conference in Beijing. She founded the Broward County Women's History Coalition and was a charter inductee into the Broward County Women's Hall of Fame. She was named the American Humanists Association's National Humanist Heroine of the Year for a lifetime of work promoting women's rights.
"The ACLU lost an outstanding leader and dedicated activist," said Board member Siobhan McLaughlin. "Annette's passion for equality and civil rights will be sorely missed."
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Former Miami Board member Wesley Pomeroy died on May 4th. Wes had a wide ranging influence on policecommunity relations, serving as a law enforcement officer in California, New York and with the U. S. Department of Justice. In Detroit he was Director of the Civilian Review Board, and he served as Director of the Metropolitan Dade County Independent Review Panel in Miami.
He developed a specialty of arranging for security at national political conventions, though as a special assistant to the Attorney General his efforts to arrange cooperation between the Chicago police and demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic Convention were rejected by Mayor Richard Daley with disastrous consequences. It was his longheld belief that the best way to fight crime was to deal with poverty, mental illness and crime's other underlying causes.
In a May 15th obituary, The New York Times wrote: "If Mr. Pomeroy had had his way, the revolutionaries of the 1960's would not have had much to rebel against. That was because Mr. Pomeroy, a member of the American Civil Liberties Union and an advocate of the decriminalization of marijuana, was a law enforcement officer who viewed protesters as citizens, not criminals..."
