Tuesday, October 11th, 2005, marked the 11-year anniversary of the death of Samir Odeh, devoted husband, father, and fighter for Palestinian national liberation.

Samir began his activism and organizing around his hometown of Lifta, near Jerusalem in the occupied territories of historic Palestine. Lifta is significant as one of the very first villages ethnically cleansed by the Zionists in 1947 and 48.

He came to the United States as a student in the early 1970s, attending classes and organizing other international and American-born students at Loop College in Chicago, now called Harold Washington College. A charismatic and strong leader, his work was instrumental in establishing the Arab Community Center (ACC) in Chicago in the late 70s. This institution became the central hub for Arabs in greater Chicagoland, attracting families from many different Arab countries and providing a non-sectarian political space for new Arab immigrants and Arab Americans.

Samir spent much of the 80s as an executive committee member of the ACC, coordinating its Palestine solidarity work and continuing to help organize students and adult male community members, as well as supporting the work and leadership of Palestinian women and their committees. At the time, the ACC, and Samir as one of its most popular representatives, was an international leader in the Palestine solidarity movement, presenting scores of educational meetings and conferences, mobilizing for local and national demonstrations, organizing delegations to Palestine, and providing humanitarian support for the Palestinian victims of Israeli Apartheid. He also helped establish a school at the ACC, where Arab Americans were taught Arab and Palestinian history and geography, the Arabic language, and Arab arts and culture.

Samir was instrumental in establishing relationships with other oppressed nationality communities and institutions in Chicago, like the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, Operation PUSH's African Americans, the Native American community, Centro Sin Fronteras' Mexican Americans, the Asian American community, and others. These alliances led to some of the most exciting work in the history of the Palestinian community in Chicago, as the ACC solidified its reputation as a fighter for national and social justice throughout Chicago and the rest of the country. And, as an extension of the grass-roots, community-based Palestinian activism and organizing, Samir helped found the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC), which became a national organization of non-Palestinians supporting Palestinian self-determination.

As the events of the early 90s in Iraq and Palestine caused a crisis in the Arab World, conditions for activists and organizers in Chicago also became more difficult. And, although Samir and the ACC were at the forefront of the anti-war movement during the first Gulf War, changing demographics and political conditions led to a restructuring of Arab and Palestinian community-based organizations and the realization that there were massive local needs that also had to be met. This led to Samir's helping to found the Southwest Youth Collaborative and facilitating the initial discussions that ultimately led to the establishment of the Arab American Action Network.

In October of 2004, Samir was able to travel back home to Palestine for the first time in almost 20 years. He was with his children, and was in the process of introducing them to their grandmother, and their father's history and childhood, in the land that he loved. But only one day after he arrived in Jerusalem, he suffered a massive heart attack and died instantly. Thousands of Palestinians marched in his funeral, and hundreds more memorialized him in Chicago.

Samir was a visionary respected by all who knew him, a man who wore his Palestinian Arab identity on his dark face, warm smile, and booming voice. He was sensitive and caring, and unyielding in his defense of Palestinians and all other oppressed communities. From hosting Chicago Mayor Harold Washington and Algerian leader Ahmad Bin Bella at the ACC, to intervening in local gang problems and Black/Arab community tensions, Samir was an organizer extraordinaire who was comfortable with people of all economic classes, nationalities, and faiths. His work, and the work of the ACC, is a model for Palestine solidarity organizing in the U.S., as it promoted the inclusion of students, women, youth, immigrants, and workers in the leadership of the movement, forming a membership organization that was truly representative of all Palestinian social sectors. Many of the Palestinians and Arabs involved in activism and organizing in Chicago today owe a debt of gratitude to his grace, passion, and style - but mostly to his revolutionary commitment to changing the world.

He was a close friend of my own family, and I'll always remember the long nights that he, his family, and his colleagues would spend in my parents' house, blowing mushroom clouds of cigarette smoke, using mounds of coffee cups and saucers, and offering endless political analyses and organizing strategies.

Samir was survived by a beautiful family - his wife, Camilia, the current Executive Director of the Southwest Youth Collaborative and a leading organizer in her own right; his daughter Leena, a second year college student in Minnesota; and his son Ferris, a high school student at Morgan Park Academy in Chicago. We all miss him, and think of him always. He would want us to continue his work.

Hatem Abudayyeh
Executive Director,
Arab American Action Network--Chicago