Remembering Alison Feighan

We lost Alison Feighan, who passed away early this morning. My heart goes out to her husband Steve Norton and her children Lincoln and Rose.

Alison was a remarkable person. I met her in 1981 or 1982, both of us waiting tables at Ian’s Patisserie/Alexandra’s in Ann Arbor while we were in college. I was immediately drawn to her humor and outgoing personality. We passed the time during the slow moments on our shifts by making jokes together. In 1983, we moved into a group house that Alison organized.

At that time, I was searching for what I wanted to do in the world. Over the couple of years before that, I had gone to meetings of a few different organizing groups, trying to find somewhere I belonged, but I hadn’t stuck with any of them. I think I was just too insecure. The summer we moved into the same house, Alison and I decided we would go together to a meeting of the Progressive Student Network (PSN). This time we stuck it out. Alison and I became leaders in PSN, and it changed both of our lives. It started me on my life’s path — community organizing. It is where I became friends with the people who are still my best friends today, more than 40 year later. None of this would have happened without Alison.

I remember that first meeting, Alison ingratiated herself by volunteering to make a flyer for an upcoming action of some kind (who remembers what that action was). Alison’s playful artwork was a regular part of PSN. We were both part of the sit-in in the laboratory of Thomas Senior in 1983, protesting military research on campus. We sat in the lab for 48 hours, peeing into jars, eating pizza that was delivered by supporters through the window, singing freedom songs, and chatting with the press. As we were getting ready to leave the lab at our planned time, all of a sudden, we were visited by campus president Harold Shapiro. We had to scramble back into position, sitting in the doorway to block the lab. He tried to talk us into leaving, and we didn’t let him know we were planning to leave anyway. After we were gone, the lab was cleaner than when we arrived.

Alison and I were the outside coordinators of the next protest action, in Professor Birdsall’s military research lab. We dealt with the press and got supplies to the protestors inside the lab. It was traumatizing to watch helplessly as our friends were arrested and dragged off by the police – more traumatizing for us than it was for our arrested friends.

I lived with Alison and three other friends when I first moved to Boston in 1985. Alison had already been in Boston for a year and was well established, doing work on housing issues in Quincy, a working-class suburb of Boston. While she was making a real difference, I struggled to find my place in Boston. My challenging first year was made so much easier by Alison’s support. Her friendship was stellar, but not so much her cooking. Her undercooked eggplant dish set a new standard we consistently encouraged her to meet: cooking that didn’t make us sick.

Alison continued to manifest the values of our college activism throughout her work and personal life (so unlike the characters in The Big Chill, a movie we hated when we were activists in college). She moved to DC and lobbied Congress on housing and community development issues. She eventually founded her own lobbying firm.

This world would be a poorer place without Alison’s personality, commitment, and work. My life would be poorer without her presence and support. I am so deeply saddened by her passing. May her name always be a blessing.

Photos from left: graduation 1984, Steve and Audrey’s wedding 1988, PSN reunion 2013, recent picture from the Feighan and Associates website.