Historical Gems

Remembering Sallie Marx
Feb. 20, 1929 - Nov. 11, 2013

Sallie Marx was a co-founder of the NYC Peoples Life Fund and NYC War Tax Resistance. As a co-administrator of the Fund with Bobby Hieger, she helped keep the fund going and making grants to local nonprofit theatre, arts, and human needs groups for four decades.

Click on the photo (left) for a slideshow of Sallie and friends.

Photo by Tom Good/Next Left Notes (2004).

Life Fund Gala 2007

The New York City People's Life Fund is part of the "beautiful nonviolent anarchist revolution, making change by replacement of big government structures by smaller more realistic dedicated groups," said Judith Malina of the Living Theatre. Crystal Field of Theatre for a New City told about years of federal and state budget cuts and how they received a small but important grant from NYC PLF. "I can't tell you what it did for our spirits. They cared about what we were doing," she said.

The First-Ever NYC PLF Gala Benefit, celebrated in New York City on September 17, 2007, was an evening of theatre, poetry, and music interspersed with tributes from organizations that have received grants during the past 36 years. A drop-in center for homeless people, NY Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, and the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project were among the groups that thanked the fund for believing in their work when almost no one else did. "Banks look at the food coop as not such a great investment-not so the PLF!" said Elisa Jiji from the 4th Street Food Co-op.

Founding members Sallie Marx, Michael Gasster, and Susan Gasster were honored for their vision in setting up the fund, and Sallie along with Robert Hieger and Joanie Fritz Zosike and a handful of others have kept it going over the last decade. Times are lean now, so the Gala was organized to boost their own spirits and spark new interest in the fund itself.

The event was held at the Living Theatre, which was founded by Malina and Julian Beck in 1947 and has its own history with the IRS. In 1963 its theatre space was seized by the IRS during a run of "The Brig," a play about the ritual cruelty of a Marine Corps brig (in revival now). It's an interesting story, which we'll have to write about someday. Meanwhile, congratulations to NYC PLF for all its great work for so many years.

Photos: top, Hanon Reznikov and Judith Malina performing a reading at the event.
Lower, Sallie Marx and Bobby Hieger, co-coordinators of NYCPLF, and PLF board member Joanie Hieger-Zosike introducing performers at the gala. Photos by Ruth Benn.