Lyle Mercer papers, 1963-2011

Lyle Freeman Mercer (1921-2014) was a socialist activist who organized opposition to the House Un-American Activities Committee, fought for universal health care coverage, and was part of a diverse number of peace, freedom, and economic justice groups including the Arab American Anti-Discrimination League, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Veterans for Peace.

Mercer was born in Bellingham, Washington on July 11, 1921 and grew up in Burien, Washington. He attended Burien’s Highline High School and was chosen as one of 20 high school students for a Seattle Post Intelligencer history contest which included tickets to FDR’s second inauguration and tours of Congress, the White House, and other sites in Washington, D.C.

He attended Central Washington University for two years in the early 1940s before enlisting in the Army Air Corps after his brother Dean was wounded in the Pearl Harbor attack. As a student pilot at Central, he wanted to continue his training but was washed out of flying early. He served instead as an administrative officer and trained as a paratrooper during two years of service in Europe. However, he did not partake in any combat duty. In 1943, he met Lt. Barbara Evans, a flight nurse, at a Nebraska heavy bomber base and they were married at her Paris base in 1945.

In 1946, the two returned to the states and settled in Seattle. Financed by the GI Bill, both entered the University of Washington. Lyle received a B.A. in political science and trained to be a teacher while Barbara received her B.S.N. Politicized by his wartime experiences, Lyle served on the board of the state Young Democrats until he was expelled for criticizing President Truman’s emerging Cold War politics. After, he joined Henry Wallace’s Progressive Party as the head of the state arm and, in 1948, chaired the state Young Progressives and was a candidate for state insurance commissioner.

In 1948, Mercer helped organize the Student Organization for Academic Freedom (SOAR) to protest State Representative Albert Canwell’s Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities which targeted UW professors alleged to hold communist sympathies. In the 1960s, he organized opposition to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which began hearings in Washington State in the mid-1950s. He staffed the Northwest chapter of the National Committee to Abolish HUAC and was elected to the state board of the American Civil Liberties Union, chairing its anti-HUAC committee.

While a socialist, he never joined the Communist or the Socialist Parties. However, he suffered constant FBI surveillance and job harassment. The FBI amassed a 350 page file on his activities. He was blackballed from teaching by the UW Education Department and fired from other jobs due to his political activities. Despite the surveillance and harassment, Mercer remained active in various peace, freedom, and economic justice groups including the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) where his wife Barbara also worked on housing discrimination.

Mercer was also passionate about universal health care coverage since the 1960s. He worked to help enact the Health Security Act (Kennedy-Corman bill), was elected as a trustee of the Group Health Cooperative for 21 years, and served two years on the board of the Cooperative League of the USA. He also served as the director of the People’s Memorial Association, the nation’s oldest and largest funeral services cooperative, until his 1987 retirement. Mercer died on March 27, 2014 at the age of 92 years old after choosing death with dignity.

Sources: UW Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project, obituary written by Lyle Mercer