In Loving Memory of George Gresham

Statement  ·  May 2026

The Gathering for Justice mourns the passing of George Gresham, former President of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, who died May 8, 2026, after a long illness. He was 72 years old.

For The Gathering for Justice, this loss is deeply personal. For many years, 1199SEIU opened its doors and offered us a home as a space where our work could grow, where organizers could convene, and where the fight to end child incarceration and mass criminalization was treated as inseparable from the broader struggle for workers' dignity and human rights. That generosity was not incidental. It was a reflection of George Gresham's belief that movements belong together.

When The Gathering for Justice organized our March 2  Justice to Washington, D.C., George Gresham was there walking alongside us, standing with our leaders, and doing what the best elders in the movement always do; affirming the vision of the next generation. At the rally before the march, he paid tribute to our organizers Tamika D. Mallory, Linda Sarsour and Carmen Perez embracing what he called "the role of the elder" and acknowledging the march was driven by young people in their 20s and 30s who had decided not to sit by and accept a future defined by injustice. That kind of witness, from a leader of his stature, meant something. It still does.

George understood something that Harry Belafonte understood too: that labor justice, racial justice, and criminal justice are not separate fights. They are one fight, waged on different fronts by people who share a common cause. Under his leadership, 1199SEIU was a force for progressive change that consistently showed up for communities that the powerful too often ignored.

We extend our deepest condolences to his family, to the 1199SEIU membership, and to the many organizers, advocates, and community members whose work was sustained by the shelter and solidarity his leadership made possible.

May he rest in the power.