Editor’s note: This is a transcript of a eulogy for Party For Socialism and Liberation member and volunteer with Nuestro Barrio Liberation Center, Thomas Crowe-Allbritton, who passed away on Friday morning, June 5th, 2026. His obituary can be read here.
Bearing the responsibility to eulogize our comrade, Thomas feels like an impossible task. The relationship of comrade is unlike any relationship I’ve ever known. It’s not a relationship that signifies blood or finds us by circumstance. It’s not a kinship based on borders or signed at birth. Comrade names the relation of a conscious decision between each other to fight together. To fight for a world free from oppression and bigotry. To fight for a vision of society where our people have power to control our own lives, and we all have the things we need to survive and thrive.
That’s why Thomas is a socialist. He dedicated his life to advancing that cause.
The seeds of that lifelong commitment to being a comrade, a socialist, a revolutionary, began very young. He once told comrades an immense reason he fights is that he saw time and time again the beautiful souls in his life crushed under the weight of this vicious system we live under. He had a strong empathy for the people in his life who, at times, hurt him or let him down, because he understood them as the beautiful souls crushed by capitalism. An endless quest from those in power to grow richer and richer at the expense of all of us.
But Thomas didn’t see himself as a beautiful soul crushed, but an asshole who never stops fighting. The evidence was the dirt underneath his nails from the grave he refused to be buried in. He dug and dug and dug until his head was above ground, arguing with death every step of the way. His love for the people never let the tumors in his bones stop him from moving. I’ve met very few people with the fortitude Thomas possesses.
Thomas is a true servant of the people. The term “public servant” too commonly refers to the spineless at City Hall or in the White House. Those who take food out of the mouths of children to give a billionaire a tax break. The criminals who throw us off our healthcare as they did to Thomas twice while on treatment, to fund endless wars abroad. The sellouts who give welfare to the landlords who keep the rents too high to lease.
Thomas is a true servant of the people. He fed people. He built homes with his hands. He studied and researched not for his career prospects, but to learn how to fight for a better world for all. And while anger and bitterness attempted to consume his drive, his main source of strength always came from a deep humanity and love for his people.
Thomas was an artist, and his most dangerous art was revolution. A belief that there is a fundamental rottenness in our world today. That things don’t have to be this way, and they won’t always be this way because we are gonna change it. Another world, a better world, is possible. That was the thesis Thomas carried with him in his heart. And it’s that thesis we must take up and push forward.
Over the last few months, I witnessed the final days of my comrade’s life. I came over consistently to drain the fluid from his lungs that were failing him. We would talk politics while watching a hospital show or I’d watch him play his new video game. Sometimes he would give me advice. Sometimes we wouldn’t say much at all. But through it, while I was trying to help me breathe, the irony was he was breathing life into me.
It didn’t come just from the quality of his intellect, although his knowledge was high. It didn’t come just from his will or his experience of struggle. But it came from what Fidel called the quality of the heart.
Comrade, I pray you felt a fraction of the support you dished out to others. I wish I knew what you were thinking the morning I wasn’t there and you asked for me. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to see you off, but I’m grateful to have heard you say I love you the night before.
Death took him up like a baby
And he lay in his icy arms
But he didn’t feel no chill
And death began to ride again —
Up beyond the evening star,
Into the glittering light of freedom
On to the great fire set by the ancestors
And there he laid Comrade Thomas
To become the flame we must keep alive
