Patricia Cayo Sexton
(1924 - 2012)

PATRICIA SEXTON MEMORIAL

SUNDAY OCTOBER 14
3PM
NYU Global Center - 238 THOMPSON STREET
GRAND HALL
New York City
Please join us in loving memory of Patricia Cayo Sexton.

RSVP to Brendan@sexton.net or Karen@dalzell.com

A BEAUTIFUL PIECE IN DISSENT BY PAT'S BEST FRIEND, LOIS GREY.
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/atw.php?id=822

** see the donation tab above for information on Pat's favorite cause!

Sexton, Dr. Patricia Cayo-- Professor Emeritus of Sociology at NYU and author more than 15 books on education, women, and especially workers and the labor movement, and widow of Brendan Sexton, former Education Director of the United Autoworkers union, died early Saturday at home in her sleep. Pat was a self-made woman who created her road by walking. She was an autoworker—working in the same Dodge/Desoto plant as her mother. She was a proud UAW member and won election as Shop Steward of that plant—the roots of much that followed. She later worked as a schoolteacher and a radio broadcaster, all the while putting herself through university and graduate school, eventually achieving tenure at NYU. Of her many books it is notable that she turned her doctoral dissertation into her first major book, Education and Income which documented the ways the public school systems of our country cheat working class and poor students, and which became the foundation for a whole school of studies of school systems. Pat produced one of the first in-depth studies of the Latino community in America and the resulting book, Spanish Harlem, was reviewed on the front page of the Times Book Review by Mayor John Lindsay.

Pat was a Board Member of Dissent Magazine, the Workers Defense League, and the Democratic Socialists of America and remained loyal to and proud of the Autoworkers until her last. Pat was an adventurer and explorer: in the 1970’s she walked and rode around the continent of Africa, she travelled to Cuba more than once to study the education system there, and to China and Southeast Asia and India (separate trips)—usually with her reliable travelling companion Lois Gray. Pat also participated in a joint Russian/American Peace March across Russia when she was in her sixties and when the Soviet Union was still alive and intimidating.

She will be missed greatly by her stepson Brendan her stepdaughter Patty and their spouses Karen and Barry, her loving grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and by her colleagues and comrades in the academy and in the labor and socialist movements. Details on a service will be at her memorial website http://www.ilasting.com/patriciasexton/memorial.php. In lieu of flowers, donations to Dissentmagazine.org will be appreciated.