A tribute from Linda Foley, who served as the President of the Berger-Marks Foundation and the President of The Newspaper Guild-CWA.

When I first met Carolyn Jacobson in the mid-1980s, I had no idea what a force of nature she was. A force of nature that helped transform a fledging memorial scholarship fund into a robust Berger-Marks Foundation that, for more than two decades, assisted and inspired countless women social-justice activists. Sadly, Carolyn passed away in March after a valiant battle with cancer, leaving a hole in our hearts and a void in our movement.

My first impression of Carolyn, whom I met when she was editor of the Bakery & Confectioners’ union newspaper, was, “Wow, what a really nice and energetic woman!” That impression persisted throughout years of Berger-Marks meetings, events, projects, dinners and countless hours of conversation. The more I got to know Carolyn and appreciate the passion she brought to every project she undertook, the more I grew to cherish her and her contributions to the labor movement and women, whom she relentlessly championed.

Needless to say, I wasn’t the only activist who was a FOC (Friend of Carolyn). She had hundreds — literally hundreds — of people in her life whose fondness for her prompted them to work harder for more fairness for workers, more equality for women and more justice for all.

“Carolyn knew everyone,” said Berger-Marks trustee Yvette Herrera. “There was not a woman in the labor movement or progressive organization whom she did not know. She connected us and lifted us up.” Carolyn also was a fixture among activists at the Coalition for Labor Union Women (CLUW), where she created a contraceptive equity program and a cervical cancer prevention program for union women.

Carolyn served as the Berger-Marks Foundation’s secretary-treasurer from its inception in 1996, following the death of Newspaper Guild-CWA organizer Edna Berger, the inspiration for the foundation. Edna’s husband, Gerald Marks, a Tin Pan Alley musician and songwriter, bequeathed the bulk of his estate (including the rights to his song catalog featuring the venerable jazz hit “All of Me”) to the foundation that was his wife’s legacy. Shortly before that, Carolyn, along with myself (then international president of the Guild), Louise Walsh (then faculty chair at the George Meany Center for Labor Studies), Kitty Peddicord (then vice president of AFGE) and Liann Ainsworth (of the AFL-CIO’s Union Summer program) launched what we called the Edna Berger Scholarship Fund.

When Liann Ainsworth transferred out of the Washington, D.C. area, Yvette Herrera, executive assistant to the president of CWA, joined the board, and the Berger-Marks Foundation came into the bulk of Gerald’s bequest, giving us vastly greater resources to assist working women. At the same time, Carolyn’s somewhat unfamiliar role as our financial leader took on unforeseen dimensions for her. Nevertheless, she continued to oversee and manage our resources diligently and, for the most part, good-naturedly, despite some discomfort with the responsibility for seven-figure investment decisions.

In fact, Carolyn never complained about any task or project the Berger-Marks board delegated to her. Anna Fink, another Berger-Marks trustee who joined the foundation along with Gladys Cisneros in later years, described Carolyn as “a real mensch … who believed in the collective power of women to change the world. She was tireless in her outreach, on behalf of Berger-Marks, to new, young leaders.”

It was Carolyn who proposed that the foundation sponsor dozens of young women to attend annual summer schools hosted by the United Association for Labor Education (UALE) throughout the United States and Canada. Year after year for almost a decade, Berger-Marks, at Carolyn’s insistence, would provide opportunities for young women union members to learn about organizing, collective bargaining and worker representation, as well as develop personal leadership skills at these schools.   The only cost to the young women was a required report (to Carolyn) about what they learned and how they intended to apply it.

While a lot of our work at the foundation focused on grant-making and individual subsidies, there were some projects we undertook that addressed issues we felt were being neglected by the labor organizations and other social-justice groups.

One such project, which Carolyn led, was publication of a mentoring handbook for union leaders. Titled “The Next Generation — A Handbook for Mentoring Future Union Leaders,” the manual, written by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, provides a clear roadmap for unions to establish and maintain enduring mentoring programs. Carolyn promoted the handbook at countless union meetings and events, eventually developing a teaching guide, complete with a Power Point presentation. She told me she hoped the mentoring manual would be “a lasting legacy” of the foundation (It’s still available for download on the WILL Empower website).

In 2011, we launched our annual Edna Awards and Kate Mullany Courageous Young Worker Awards. Each year, we’d recognize several outstanding young women for their courage and effectiveness in the social-justice and labor movements. As we weighed the pros and cons of each nomination, Carolyn “would always find a strength in each” entry, Yvette observed. “It was difficult for her to eliminate any. Her nature and lifelong work was to lift up women and highlight what made them special.”

What made Carolyn special was her passion, her energy, her values and her devotion to people, especially young women.

“She devoted her life to mentoring and developing young women leaders, inside and outside labor unions,” said Berger-Marks Chairperson Louise Walsh, a long-time friend and colleague of Carolyn. “She was the friend who always listened and always cared about what was happening in your life.

“Carolyn and I often talked about our brothers,” Louise continued. “She was well aware of the troubles and torment my youngest brother, Hank, was experiencing over many years. I called her the day I learned Hank died. The circumstances were grim and complicated. Carolyn wept. That meant so much to me.”