If you lived in Chicago over the last two decades and came anywhere near labor circles — or just about any struggle for social justice at all — chances are you met James Thindwa, who passed this month after a long illness. And if you were a senior fighting for decent living conditions, a striking worker needing support, or a charter school teacher needing a union anywhere in the United States, you benefited from James’s hard work.

The young Zimbabwean freedom fighter who came to the United States in the 1970s touched countless people with both his effective organizing and unmatched spirit over the last four decades. James’s life partner and comrade, Martha Biondi, has written a beautiful tribute. What follows here is a sketch of a man’s life lived fully in the struggle at a time when the odds were usually long and the successes few — and the victories therefore all the more sweet.

The longtime executive director of Chicago Jobs with Justice and a later an organizer with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), James was a friend to many. While I had the good fortune to occasionally see James in purely social settings, I knew him best as a collaborator in labor activism.