Lisa Garmon, local activist, organizer

Lisa Garmon

Lisa Garmon, decades-long Carrboro/Chapel Hill resident, active community volunteer and organizer, champion/activist for the rights of women, LBGT/queer rights, the rights of Latin American leftist farmers and immigrants, defender of the environment, and a devoted, connected, supportive friend to countless numbers of us, passed away July 3rd, 2007 from a rare thyroid cancer.   

Lisa lived by her beliefs, making personal responsibility her creed. She never missed an opportunity to educate, to enlighten or to support a community member in need. Lisa changed the lives of many people she came to know.

In the 1980s, Lisa was active with Greenpeace, US PIRG, Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC) and served as one of the editors and contributors to the Prism, a local political newspaper and forum for community and global issues. She fought for labor rights and helped build shanties on the UNC campus to call for the university’s divestiture from South Africa. She was also a contributor to Ransom Street, a local literary and artists’ zine.

She was an American Dance Festival (ADF) and Internationalist Books’ volunteer for the last 20 years.

In the 1990s, Lisa was active in the pivotal push to increase the salaries of UNC sanitation workers. Lisa also started the Lillith Collective, a women’s literary organization which produced a controversial local feminist zine, HA! She organized radio programs on the topics of women’s rights and domestic violence for Northern Hemisphere Live, a featured program on WXYC, 89.3, UNC’s student radio station. She always had energy to take part in local and national marches and protests for causes such as women’s reproductive rights, Take Back the Night, opposition to the war in Iraq and Critical Mass, an effort to encourage space and safety on the road for local cyclists, among others.

As the program assistant for the first UNC campus Women’s Center, she risked her job and fought to keep a progressive and enlightened philosophy, bringing in cutting-edge authors and speakers to UNC.

Beyond her contributions to community, Lisa loved to prepare and share organic meals and liked nothing more than sitting down with friends and enjoying wine and food. She loved the outdoors, dancing to eclectic music, supporting local musicians, wait staffs and artists, and convening and hanging out with her many friends. Many people met her as a waitress at the Hardback Café and Bookstore and as a volunteer and supporter of Weaver Street Market.

Lisa was an outspoken, passionate, generous, open-hearted and much-loved member of our community whom we will miss immensely.

A memorial service to honor Lisa Garmon will be held on Saturday, July 7th at 5:00 p.m. at the Forest Theatre, across from the Paul Green Theatre on the UNC campus. For directions and updates, please go to www.caringbridge.org, click on “Visit a CaringBridge site” and in the “site name” box enter “lisagarmon.