By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / January 27, 2026
[Cross posted from Alice Embree’s Substack]
On January 24, 2026, Glenn Scott from Austin was inducted into the Texas AFL-CIO Labor Hall of Fame. It was icy cold outside, but warm hearts honored a woman who ran a marathon in her life as a labor organizer. I was asked by Glenn’s partner to make some remarks at the event. I’m sharing them because Glenn embodied the spirit we need during these dark times – the sustained effort, pacing, and endurance of a marathon runner.
Glenn Scott was an organizer. She was born in Fort Worth in 1948. Her father died when she was nine. Her mom, Eula Mae, raised Glenn and her brother with Social Security as the primary source of income. She attended Texas Tech where she got a degree in Latin American Studies and met her partner for life, Richard Croxdale. After a stint teaching school in Fort Worth, she and Richard moved to Austin. I met them fifty years ago.
Determined to get information about women’s history into Texas schools, Glenn founded People’s History in Texas in 1975. She reached out to Latane Lambert who had a long labor history. Latane became her mentor and helped Glenn contact women who were involved in the historic strikes of pecan shellers and garment workers in the 30s and 40s. People’s History in Texas gathered oral histories and produced a documentary about them.
That work inspired Glenn’s long career in labor organizing – something she could do well in both English and Spanish.
She started in 1982 organizing for AFSCME. Then, with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers, she organized hat and clothing workers and boot makers all over Texas. It began her trademark love for union-made hats and boots.
After working with the Texas AFL-CIO Workforce Transition Project, Glenn started organizing with the American Federation of Teachers in 1996. Louis Malfaro remembers standing with Glenn at a union table outside a school. No one was coming to the table. Glenn went marching into the school and returned with a long line of teachers and staff. She was involved with the merger of AFT and the National Education Association that formed Education Austin. In 2007, AFT National drafted Glenn as rep, sending her to organize in special hot spots all over the country.
In 2011 she began working with the National Nurses United in El Paso. When the Ebola crisis came to a Dallas hospital in 2012, she saw the doctors on the news in Haz Mat suits and the nurses in uniforms that didn’t protect them. She immediately organized a press conference to make sure nurses received the protective gear they needed.
In 2017, having retired and battling cancer, Glenn continued to organize. She energized the Austin chapter of Texas Alliance for Retired Americans. She excelled at coalition work, getting disability activists, union nurses, healthcare advocates, and Democratic Socialists of America outside Senator Cornyn’s office to protest when Obamacare was on the “repeal and replace” chopping block. In 2018, she organized labor and immigrant rights groups to take on Southwest Key, the charter school giant getting rich off immigrant family separation.
Glenn was an organizer. But she’d also show up with soup when you were sick. Like the best organizers, she learned your story. When you heard her introduce someone, it wasn’t just a name. It was often an accolade.
Greg Casar shared a memory with a local reporter about meeting Senator Bernie Sanders. Glenn introduced him as someone doing outstanding progressive work in Austin for decades. He was only 25 and very newly elected to the Austin City Council. “She made it easier but also pushed me to try to live up to her kind words.”
Glenn loved Texas bluebonnets and live music. She had a great laugh and singing voice and always insisted on a picture. She was socialist feminist, labor organizer, boot wearing, hat loving, mother, grandmother, partner, friend, and mentor to many.
Montserrat Garibay remembered standing next to Glenn outside a school as she handed out leaflets and talked to as many people as possible. Then Glenn turned to her and said, “You do it.”
And so, we all will.
When we fight, we win.
Socialist Feminist
Five decades ago, I met Glenn Scott and Richard Croxdale through The Rag, Austin’s underground newspaper and their work with New American Movement (NAM). The feminist press I worked with was housed at the Bread and Roses School for Socialist Education, a NAM project. In 1976, Bread and Roses became a welcoming space for Chile solidarity work, a cause dear to my heart.
Glenn was at the 1982 merger of NAM and the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) that created the Democratic Socialists of America. When DSA grew from an Austin chapter of about 40 to a chapter bursting at the seams with newcomers inspired by Bernie Sanders, Glenn was there. She co-chaired DSA and she inspired a new generation of socialist feminists working for reproductive justice.
The program for her Glenn’s induction into the Labor Hall of Fame ended with these words:
She built coalitions, connected people, brought people into the fight, protested, block walked, and generally raised hell. Central to everything was socialist feminism. It is a way to live and collaborate and fight with love rather than hate.
Mourning in America
I am borrowing Robert Reich’s August 26, 20226 Substack title, “Mourning in America.” I quote from his Substack post:
Today we mourn the death-by-execution of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. I use the term execution intentionally because they were murdered intentionally by Trump’s goons. (I’ve seen the videos; I’m sure you have as well.)
At times like this, Gandhi used to say, “The truth is revealing itself.”
To show our grief and solidarity, you might want to wear a black armband this week and light a candle in your window this evening and for the remainder of the week.
But there is much more to do than mourn. As the labor leader Joe Hill asked in 1915 just before he was executed: “Don’t mourn … Organize.” The best way to honor the memories of Alex Pretti and Renee Good is to take action against the forces that executed both of them.
We’re in treacherous terrain. Don’t isolate. Find like-minded people you can work with. You may find them in union halls, political groups like Indivisible, DSA, or faith communities. Find one thing you can do each week. It might be showing up at events or rallies, sending postcards, making phone calls to representatives, sending messages of solidarity to Minneapolis from faith groups. Do one thing a week to bolster resistance.
Don’t Mourn, Organize
The Texas Alliance for Retired Americans always gives me choices. Call representatives. In the U.S. House, thank your reps that voted not to fund ICE. Now, it’s time to call Senators – yes, Texans, even John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. Tell them not to vote for funding bills that include ICE funding. [You can be connected through the Senate Switchboard: (202) 224-3121.
When I say I’ve been to a rally, I’m sometimes asked, “Will it change things?” It will change me. It will offer me solidarity and a chance to display solidarity. I think everyone should be able to say, “I did one thing this week.” I signed a petition, sent postcards, called a representative, talked to two people outside my comfort zone, gave support to a campaign.
Don’t Just Vote, Organize
I have friends who think that I mean electoral work when I say organize and campaign. I don’t, but I do vote. And in this primary, we have an opportunity to send a collective message.
A friend said to me, “I wish we had a presidential candidate.”
I don’t. We have what we need right now – the opportunity for a referendum on the Trump administration without the distraction of the Electoral College. We don’t have to be distracted by the “battleground state” focus of the news cycle. I am sick to death of battleground states.
In Texas, we have a battleground of 254 counties and for the first time in decades we have Democratic candidates up and down the ballot in every race – U.S. Senator to county constable, legislative seat to county commissioner. Because we’re Texas, we have an astonishingly number of judicial races. We’ve got young candidates with bold ideas. I was sitting at an AFL-CIO table with two of them – Montserrat Garibay running for TX HD 49 and Clayton Tucker who is running for Agriculture Commissioner and inspired by Jim Hightower’s pioneering work in that office. There are some great candidates for U.S. Senate. Their debate was streamed from the Texas AFL-CIO COPE convention. Find it on YouTube.
I think we have a motivated electorate who are horrified by corruption and cruelty. We also have buyer’s remorse from many independents who voted for Trump believing prices would drop, he’d go after “criminal immigrants,” and never imagined that Trump’s ICE thugs would shoot U.S. citizens on the street. A solid chunk of Trump voters will remain motivated by racism and anti-immigrant rhetoric. But many will not.
The messaging of the Texas AFL-CIO COPE convention seems brilliant.
Workers vs. Billionaires: Which Side Are You On?
[Alice Embree, an Austin writer and activist, is the author of Voice Lessons, published in 2021. She is an editor of Celebrating The Rag, published in 2016 and Exploring Space City!, published in 2021. She posts on Substack as well as The Rag Blog.]
