FOX, CARL “STEVE”

Carl (Steve) Fox passed away on April 14 after a long illness. He was born in Philadelphia on June 23, 1944. Steve’s parents, Edith and Arthur Fox, were socialist activists in the Socialist Workers Party. He called himself a “red diaper baby.” The family moved to Detroit, worked in factories and were very active in the labor movement. He was proud of having gone to Cass Technical High School, one of the most selective in the country. Steve got involved in social justice work through issues of racial justice and equality. In 1958, he helped raise outrage about the “Kissing Case” in North Carolina where two small Black children were jailed after a six-year-old white girl kissed them on the cheek. He joined NAACP pickets of Woolworth to pressure the company to integrate its lunch counters in the South.

He traveled to Europe with his family in 1959 to England, Germany, Yugoslavia and France. There he met well-known socialist Peng Shu-tse who had been a leader of the Chinese Communist Party until he was expelled by Mao for defending Trotsky. For the rest of his life Steve had a keen interest in the fight for civil rights, economic equality and, in his last decades, justice for Palestinians.

In the early ‘60s he was part of the civil rights group Friends of SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) in Detroit. He went down to Georgia to do support work for the Freedom Riders. There he met Julian Bond.

In 1970 he was involved in a horrific motorcycle accident. He couldn’t walk or speak for months and suffered from traumatic brain injury (TBI) for the rest of his life. He eventually got work at Bell in Detroit and later when he moved to New Haven worked at the telephone company (SNET) as a Central Office Technician on Orange Street until his retirement. He lived in West Haven, Milford at The Towers in New Haven where he had numerous friends and finally at Twin Maples Health care. He was able to live independently due to multiple social services including Bridges of Milford. Steve was very philosophical and analytical, and because of the TBI he talked slowly which forced his friends to pay close attention to what he was saying. His careful, slow, deliberate speech helped get the nuances across of the particular points he wanted to make.

He liked to travel especially to Mexico and to Branson, Missouri. He had a great sense of humor and enjoyed all kinds of popular music.

He is survived by his friends Stanley Heller, LouAnn Villani and Frank and Paula Panzarella. In this time of COVID-19, memorial plans are on hold.