Vincent Copeland

Vincent Copeland (June 19, 1915 – June 7, 1993) was an American actor, labor official, writer, and political activist. His career spanned the stage, industrial labor, and left-wing political organizing across several decades.

Copeland appeared on Broadway between 1938 and 1940, with credits including Missouri Legend and Mamba's Daughters. During this period he was active as a professional actor, though he subsequently redirected his energies toward political activism and industrial work.

Leaving acting behind, Copeland took up work as a welder at the Bethlehem Steel plant in Lackawanna, New York, where he also served as a grievance officer and edited his union's newspaper. He challenged the plant's practice of filling better positions held by Black furnace workers with outside hires rather than promoting from within. The dispute contributed to a wildcat strike involving 16,000 workers, after which Copeland was not rehired.

A communist and member of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, Copeland joined with Sam Marcy and others to form an internal faction that broke from the party in 1958. The following year, he became a founding member of the Workers World Party and served as the founding editor of its newspaper, Workers World.

During the 1960s, Copeland served on the board of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, a major coordinating body for anti-war protests. He later edited the Community Voice newspaper in Jersey City, New Jersey, from 1985 to 1988.

In 1940, Copeland married fellow communist Elizabeth "Libby" Ross, who died in 1989. He had two stepchildren, including Deirdre Griswold, who was the Workers World Party's presidential nominee in 1980. Copeland died on June 7, 1993, at his home in Hoboken, New Jersey.