The 59-year-old academic and activist fought fearlessly for low-income Rhode Islanders.

04:09 PM EST on Monday, November 15, 2004

BY SCOTT MacKAY
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Nancy H. Gewirtz, a longtime professor of social work at Rhode Island College and one of the state's strongest advocates for welfare recipients and the working poor, died yesterday after a 3 1/2-year fight against pancreatic cancer. She was 59.

Gewirtz was a familiar figure at the State House, prowling the marble corridors and hearing rooms in her battles -- many of them unpopular with the state's political and business elite -- on behalf of low-income Rhode Islanders.

She died at her home on Everett Street on Providence's East Side yesterday morning, surrounded by her family; her husband of 35 years, Dr. Henry Gewirtz; her children, Aaron Gewirtz, of Narragansett, and Rebekah Gewirtz, of Somerville, Mass.; and her brother, David Horwitz, of Salem, Mass.

Services will be held at noon today at Temple Beth-El at 100 Orchard Ave., Providence.

Chemotherapy, radiation and surgery drained her strength and shrank her swimming-and-exercise toned body in recent years, but she never let the disease dim her whimsy, sap her spirit or erode her dedication to the causes she held dear.

"What keeps me going every day is the injustice in our society," Gewirtz told a reporter in a conversation more than a year ago, as she drove from the East Side to the State House. "You have to get up every day and keep fighting."

She was that rare academic and activist who had the tenacity, humor, knowledge and pragmatism to reach across the political spectrum to forge compromise when an issue demanded it.

Such was the case in the mid-1990s when the General Assembly and the administration of then-Gov. Lincoln C. Almond fashioned a response to the federal government's overhaul of welfare.

Gewirtz worked with low-income advocate Linda Katz; Christine Ferguson, state human services director; Gary Sasse, executive director of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council; Sen. Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, and legislative leaders to ensure that the welfare changes were not focused only on cutting the poor from the welfare rolls.

Gewirtz put together a group of low-income advocates who demanded -- and largely won -- a program that provided state-sponsored job-training and child-care support to help welfare recipients, the vast majority of whom are poor single mothers, get on their feet and succeed in jobs.

"We're going to miss her. Nancy was dedicated to the things she believed in," Sasse said yesterday.

"She was an incredibly smart, funny and strong woman," said Paiva Weed, who is the state Senate majority leader. "Nancy was never afraid of what some might call unpopular causes."

Gewirtz relished puncturing what she saw as the facile nostrums of the state's business and political leaders. The usual diagnoses from business groups of what is wrong with Rhode Island is that state government spends too much money and that business taxes are too high.

But a study initiated last year by Gewirtz and a group she and Katz cofounded, the Poverty Institute at RIC's College of Social Work, disputed that notion. The report showed that Rhode Island's growth in state government spending in recent years has been among the lowest in the United States and that corporate taxes as a share of state government revenues had declined.

Gewirtz argued forcefully in speeches, studies, newspaper op-ed articles and in State House hearings that state deficits were generated by tax breaks for corporations and wealthy Rhode Islanders.

"We don't have a deficit because of excessive spending; that is really a myth," Gewirtz said in an interview. "What the state has done is give significant tax breaks to businesses and wealthy individuals."

Gewirtz was the daughter of the late Hyman and Silvia (Wolf) Horwitz; both her parents died of pancreatic cancer. She was born in Boston and raised in Newton, Mass., where her father was close to Arnold "Red" Auerbach, the legendary Boston Celtics coach.

She was a devoted Celtics fan and counted players from the team's 1960s glory days as friends. She especially admired Bill Russell and K.C. Jones, who remained a lifelong friend.

An accomplished sailor, Gewirtz piloted her boat, Huckleberry, around Nantucket Sound, near her family's summer home. She loved to swim and ski. "Before she got sick, she could easily swim two miles or more," Katz said.

Gewirtz was a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She received a master's degree in social work from the State University of New York at Buffalo; a master's degree in public administration from the University of Connecticut; and a doctorate in political science from UConn.

One of her favorite intellectuals was Howard Zinn, the radical former Boston University professor and author, who spoke in 1996, at her behest, at the annual meeting of the Rhode Island Campaign to Eliminate Childhood Poverty.

She started teaching at RIC in 1978 and later became chairwoman of the master's degree program in social work. She brought the passion that informed her activism to the classroom.

"She has taught a couple of generations of social workers . . . and really changed the lives of many of her students," said Elizabeth Burke Bryant, executive director of Kids Count/Rhode Island, the child advocacy organization. "Her legacy will live on in their work on issues of social justice."

If you wanted a full Gewirtz tongue-lashing, tell her that the causes she fought for were hopeless or that organizing to confront the powerful just wasn't worth it.

"The future is an infinite succession of presents. And to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, while embracing all that is good, is in itself a marvelous victory," Gewirtz said in an interview last year.

It irritated Gewirtz when admirers -- including political figures who paid tribute to her accomplishments but did not know her personally -- referred to her in such testimonial-dinner cliches as someone who was a "voice for the voiceless" or the State House "social conscience."

"I don't ever want to be anybody's social conscience. I want people to get involved, and go to the State House, and work with groups like the Coalition for the Homeless," she said.

Today, Governor Carcieri applauded her contributions to the state: “Whether it was championing health care, child care or affordable housing, Nancy worked tirelessly to realize her vision for those who are less fortunate,” he said in a statement.

“Her remarkable efforts have enhanced the quality of life of countless Rhode Islanders and her memory will live on in the programs she supported and in the hearts of those whose lives she touched. She will never be forgotten.”

Gerwitz won many awards for her work, but was dismissive of most of them.

In February 2002, the Providence Newspaper Guild, which represents employees at The Providence Journal, presented Gewirtz with its annual John Kiffney Award for service to the community. The award, which honors the memory of Kiffney, a reporter who died of cancer, is given at the annual Guild Follies, a show that draws about 1,300 people annually at the Venus de Milo in Swansea.

"I know why you guys are giving me the award this year," Gewirtz said, her face creasing into a mischievous smile, minutes before she received her plaque. "You think this is going to be my last Follies."

"Well, guess what, I'm not going anywhere," said Gewirtz.