On Saturday afternoon, July 1, approximately 100 of Maury's family, friends and community gathered at the Texas AFL-CIO offices in Austin to celebrate his life. In addition to a brief spiritual initiatory ceremony led by Dana Ellinger with Maury's friend Martin Coulter and members of the Ellinger family, there were presentations by David Lambert, Nina Mullen and Joe Lambert for the family, and then a number of impromptu stories and memories by friends and family. The ceremony also included two songs performed by Frances Barton. The following are comments prepared by his brother, Joe Lambert.

Comments by Joe Lambert at Maury's Memorial

First, I want to say how much it means to my family, and in particular my mom, Latane, that you have all come out today to celebrate my brother's life. David and I, along with my wife Nina and son Massimo, and David's wife, Judy, came out as quickly as we could on Wednesday, but we knew when we arrived that Latane and Maury's community of friends had surrounded their home in North Austin, and were providing love and support. In particular I want to thank Martin Coulter, David Starr and Robin, Bobbie Nelson, and Glenn Scott for their amazing contributions this week. I also want to thank our nieces Janeane and Renee, and their husbands, Grant and Kevin, for all their help this week. To all of you, we owe a deep debt of gratitude.

My comments today are about Maury and his political commitment. Holding the memorial here at the AFL-CIO offices, among a number of people that knew Maury in various circumstances, I just felt it would be appropriate to talk a bit of politics. I am also thinking about the shadow of Dubya's Governor's house across the way, and want to send some progressive political juju his way for a few minutes, just to see if I can piss him off. Bear with me. Also I have a small piece I made in video that I will share at the end of this speech with a more personal side of my brother and my feelings for him.

I have three stories to tell. First, my brother and the anti-war movement. At the age of 15 Maury became very involved in trying to stop the Vietnam War. At his high school, Lake Highlands in Dallas, he cranked up my Father's mimeograph machines to put out The Other Side, an underground newspaper denouncing the war in general, and the normal hypocrisy and abusiveness of that particular educational institution in particular. In his sophomore year, as I remember it, Maury was permanently expelled four times. The first three times were for things like the dress code and putting out The Other Side. Latane and George would march down and give the principal hell, and get Maury back in to school. He went to his first Peace March in Washington that year, hitch hiking across the country. At Lake Highlands he was part of a network of North Dallas Student for Democratic Society members trying to activate the high schools.

In the spring of 1970, when Nixon's bombing of Cambodia, and the murder of four students at Kent State, put the SDS on national alert and demonstrations and campus shutdowns swept the nation, there was protest at Lake Highlands. Maury and several students unfurled a long banner on the lawn in front of the school that said, Four Dead at Kent State, How many More?. The Principals came by and told the students that they either drop the banner or get expelled. As each of the other students peeled away, Maury just stared back, unmoved. He never went back to Lake Highlands after that day.

My second story is about one of Maury's early labor experiences. Maury was all of eighteen now, and wanted to help George with a little campaign he had going at the Scottex Manufacturing plant in Carollton, Texas. The ILGWU had wanted to challenge a sweetheart deal a rival union had signed with the company and was trying to organize for a new representation vote and contract. Maury went to work at the plant as a mole of sorts, and gave George and the other ILG reps the scoop on how Scottex was trying to undermine the process from inside the plant. The time came to begin negotiations and Maury found himself on a rank and file negotiation committee at the table with the company representatives and the union, represented by my dad. The union had relatively modest goals, and the next thin my father knew, Maury was demanding near revolutionary upheaval, having convinced his fellow workers the ILG was going to sell them out. Let's just say that made dinners at home a bit more interesting.

Finally, I want to talk about Maury's activism here in Austin with the Texas State Employee's Union as an employee of the Texas School for the Deaf. Some of you here may be more familiar with the details, but I remember Maury telling me about relatively early on his work there, his having to confront TSD about they were dealing with contract workers and the issues of benefits. Apparently he sent a letter that led to some authority, and cc'd it to various elected officials and AFLCIO honchos that Maury knew through George and Latane, and it led to a small tempest... and a change in the policy. But from that point, Maury was marked as a troublemaker, and TSD bureaucrats for most of his career there gave him relative grief.

As you can see, Maury had no real fear of taking a stand. I spent many years doing active political organizing, and I have to say, that Maury at age 16 or 17 was perhaps one of the most natural, and brilliant, organizers I have ever met. But the time the Dallas cops got through with him, framing him in a drug bust in 1972, he was more of a refugee. Like many young people, Maury's star rose quickly and burned so hotly bright that he was discovered, and censored, sacrificed before the altar of political conformity and repressive intolerance that is the hallmark of this state's dominant political culture.

You see I have never forgiven Texas for what it did to my brother, and yes, perhaps my father and scores of other people like them. I have sat like refugee as well, out in the safely liberal context of San Francisco, too angry to forgive, even some 25 years later.

Despite Maury's anti-war activism, Maury felt perhaps closest to Vietnam War Veterans. Like him, they suffered through the era with all their innocence stripped away. And like many of them, they could not ever really come home. I think he also shared a political as well as spiritual and cultural bond with the Native people of this country. He sensed that politics meant place, meant honoring the earth, meant forgiveness and most of all, meant carrying a profound sorrow at how hatred and prejudice had led the settlers of this land to facilitate the genocide against an entire people. Maury knew the red earth of Texas was washed in the blood of countless innocents, native, Latino, African American and progressive white alike.

I know Maury would have felt quite happy to have him recognized here at the AFL-CIO, and on his behalf, I want to thank the leadership and rank and file members of Texas Unions for continuing their work in the face of so many obstacles. The prize is still there, for justice, for dignity, and I offer my solidarity with all of you in your efforts to birth a progressive Texas majority in the year's to come. Thank you very much.