photograph courtesy stephanie painter
The cars in the funeral procession carried Black, brown, and white mourners, all bonded in an unwelcome mission. As the melody of “Bridge over Troubled Water” softly played, local activists, medical school students, and family members dropped delicate flowers on my sister-in-law’s casket. An activist and educator, Cleo Silvers-Painter constructed many bridges over troubled water, lifting up others and bringing them closer together. “Our time here on this earth is short,” she often said. “There is not time to hate.”
The casket was bright blue, a fitting selection for a vibrant woman who worked hard but also appreciated laughter and great jazz. Her generous smile attracted children and launched friendships. Elmwood Cemetery draws the living to honor the dead, but also to learn about figures in Memphis history or explore gardens, and in my imagination, she is not isolated there. This is a small measure of comfort — a bridge over turbulent water — that makes death less troubling. In life, Cleo would have had rich discussions with former NAACP executive director Benjamin L. Hooks and local activist Maxine A. Smith, both buried at Elmwood.
Cleo dedicated her life to the goal of “free, quality, preventative healthcare for all.” Asked the key to creating change, she advised listening to others to discover their needs. UCLA medical students flew in to pay tribute to a mentor who illuminated healthcare disparities, and out of dedication to Cleo’s legacies, local fair housing and labor activist Jayanni Webster helped her husband Ron plan the funeral.
Cleo’s fellow Black Panther Party (BPP) and Young Lords Organization (YLO) Veterans and Elders sent flowers to the Celebration of Life service, while others viewed it livestream. They remembered working alongside Cleo to provide free breakfasts to low-income schoolchildren in 1969. The following year, she collaborated with YLO, a socialist organization of Puerto Rican youth, African Americans, and Latinx New Yorkers. BPP and YLO pushed for better health resources for all working-class communities, but especially those of color in New York, campaigning for testing for tuberculosis and sickle-cell anemia and safe reproductive rights for women.
“Make life an adventure where you meet and change other people. Then you break the walls of segregation.” — Cleo Silvers-Painter
YLO and BPP helped Cleo and her Lincoln Hospital co-workers set up what became the Lincoln Hospital Drug Detoxification Center, still serving the South Bronx. As its acting director, Cleo hired Dr. Mutulu Shakur, whose team introduced acupuncture as a substitute for methadone. She broke new ground by co-founding the NYC-wide Health Revolutionary Unity Movement and helping compose its Patient Bill of Rights, the first in the United States. Before retiring, she served as director of outreach at Mount Sinai’s Irving J. Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine. In 2022, City University of New York/Lehman College awarded Cleo an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters for her social activism in the South Bronx.
After meeting my intellectual, white brother-in-law in the ’90s, Cleo embraced and became part of our family, folding in with the smoothness of meringue meeting cake batter. She gave us a deeper understanding of the meaning of reconciliation, removing barriers that hinder authentic relationships and building community through storytelling and restorative justice. Growing up, my daughters heard Aunt Cleo’s stories, giving them wider lenses on inequities as adults. At a Juneteenth unity service at Germantown United Methodist Church in 2019, our family sang hymns associated with the Civil Rights Movement in a multicultural experience with other churches. Communion was in Spanish, and people who may not often connect in daily life sang “Bind Us Together.”
Until the month before she died at 78, Cleo kept a full schedule of Zoom meetings. Regrettably, she did not finish her memoir, though others have written extensively about her work. In youth, she faced stormy waters of racism. In 1959, she entered a Daughters of the American Revolution essay contest at her Philadelphia school, writing about her family’s conviction that everyone has the duty to vote. When she won, DAR committee members were reluctant to present the award to a Black student, and while teachers defended her right to the prize, Cleo decided to use her intellect to fight for social justice.
As an energetic teen, she participated in the struggle that desegregated the program American Bandstand and after high school became the first Black woman participant in the Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) program, working on tenant rights issues.
Locally, she enjoyed catching the Joe Restivo 4 jazz band and judging entries in the Indie Memphis Film Festival. Still, she mourned the city’s segregated social environment, engaging with the Living Wage/Fight for $15 movement and guiding a high-school program commemorating the 60th anniversary of sit-ins by Black students enrolled at LeMoyne College and Owens College who integrated public libraries, museums, and pools.
“Cleo wasn’t finished yet,” said friend Emily Marks. Her work will continue because she inspired a new generation. These young people will not let Ron grieve alone, and he has joined them in Free the 901. He learned from Cleo, as we all did. “Make life an adventure where you meet and change other people,” she once said. “Then you break the walls of segregation.”
