Jane Anne Morris would have been 66 years old today. This memoriam to her life and groundbreaking work in what we now call the Community Rights movement was posted in July 2019 on the Program on Corporations Law and Democracy’s (POCLAD) website. We at Community Rights US highly recommend reading anything by JAM. Her writing is so clear and compelling that it’s not long and the reader will find themselves at a place where they have a deeper understanding of Community Rights. In other words, her writing made what can be a challenging and complex subject easy to learn.
It is with sincere sadness, but also deep responsibility that we share the following “In Memoriam” of one-time POCLAD “principal” Jane Anne Morris. Besides being a colleague and friend, Jane Anne taught us all through her writing and speaking different ways to think about and see the world more clearly.
After reading about her life, visit her website, http://democracythemepark.org/home/, to see what we mean.
“Gaveling Down the Rabble,” written when she was part of the POCLAD collective, remains a cutting edge anti-democratic critique of the Constitution’s commerce clause. The same is true of many of her articles — several of which were published in our By What Authority newsletter.
The linked video, Democracy Theme Park is pure Jane Anne — smart, clear and witty.
We painfully mourn her loss, but are heartened knowing that her ideas and work lives on.
Read. Reflect. Share.
In Memoriam
Corporate anthropologist, activist, and author Jane Anne Morris died of ALS in Madison, Wisconsin on May 28, 2019. She was 65.
Jane Anne Morris’s activism began during the Vietnam War, while she attended junior high school. Over the next five decades, she would work on many grassroots campaigns encompassing issues such as local democracy, anti-war efforts, the environment, human rights, labor organizing, energy, police brutality, U.S. intervention in Latin America, health care access, and food security (advocating for rooftop community gardens in the most urban part of Madison).
Morris was a fascinated student of human behavior, nature, culture, and the world of ideas. An exceptional thinker, her ability to ask provocative questions and to see things in a unique light was a hallmark of her scholarship, her activism, and the moral framework by which she lived. Daily, she interacted with the world with a bottomless curiosity for whatever plants and creatures she encountered (and how the local humans would engage with them), took copious notes, and left no assumption unquestioned. Tacked to her wall, you might find information on how to identify animal skulls by their dental patterns beside a list of “imperfect but compelling rhymes.” E.g. “litigious midges: little flies that spend too much time in court.”
(To read the rest of this touching memoriam at its original source please click HERE.)