Vincent Copeland (June 19, 1915 – June 7, 1993) was an American actor, labor official, writer, and political activist. A communist, Copeland was an actor during the 1930s but soon turned to political activism. Turning to industrial labor, Copeland was a welder, grievance officer, and editor of his unions' newspaper at the
Bethlehem Steel
The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. For most of the 20th century, it was one of the world's largest steel producing and shipbuilding companies. At the height of its succe ...
plant in
Lackawanna, New York
Lackawanna is a Administrative divisions of New York#City, city in Erie County, New York, Erie County, New York (state), New York, United States, just south of the city of Buffalo, New York, Buffalo in western New York (state), New York State. T ...
. He "opposed the company's practice of denying black furnace workers better jobs by hiring outsiders to fill them" and 16,000 workers walked off the job in a
wildcat strike
The wildcat is a species complex comprising two small wild cat species: the European wildcat (''Felis silvestris'') and the African wildcat (''F. lybica''). The European wildcat inhabits forests in Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus, while the ...
. Copeland, however, was not rehired.
A member of the
Trotskyist
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...
Sam Marcy
Sam Ballan (1911 – February 1, 1998), known by his pen name Sam Marcy, was an American lawyer, writer, and Marxist-Leninist activist of the post-World War II era. He co-founded the Workers World Party in 1959 and served as its chairperson unt ...
and others formed a faction which eventually left the party in 1958. A year later, Copeland became a founding member of
Workers World Party
The Workers World Party (WWP) is a revolutionary Marxist–Leninist communist party founded in 1959 by a group led by Sam Marcy of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Marcy and his followers split from the SWP in 1958 over a series of long-standi ...
(WWP). He was the founding editor of the party's newspaper, the eponymously named
Workers World
The Workers World Party (WWP) is a revolutionary Marxist–Leninist communist party founded in 1959 by a group led by Sam Marcy of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Marcy and his followers split from the SWP in 1958 over a series of long-stan ...
.
During the 1960s, he was a board member of
National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
The Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which became the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, was a coalition of American antiwar activists formed in November 1966 to organize large demonstrations in o ...
, a major coordinating organization for mass protests against United States involvement in the Vietnam War. Copeland was a long-time resident of
Jersey City, New Jersey
Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.
Copeland married fellow communist Elizabeth 'Libby' Ross in 1940. Ross died in 1989. He had two step-children, one of whom,
Deirdre Griswold
Deirdre Griswold is an American communist political activist. She is the editor of ''Workers World'', the newspaper of the Workers World Party, and former candidate for President of the United States. Griswold ran in 1980 United States presidenti ...
, was Workers World's nominee for president in 1980. He died on June 7, 1993, at his home in
Hoboken, New Jersey
Hoboken ( ; Unami: ') is a city in Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 60,417. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 58,690 i ...