Roz Payne

Roz Payne (born Roslyn Berkman Cristiano; October 25, 1940 – May 21, 2019) was an American political activist, director and cinematographer.

Biography Roslyn Berkman Cristiano was born October 25, 1940 in Paterson, New Jersey to James "Jimmy" Cristiano, an Italian immigrant, and Edith Berkman, a Jewish immigrant from Poland. She was raised in a working class household by her parents who were both lifelong socialists and anti-racist activists. Her mother Edith was an organizer for the textile union in Lawrence, Massachusetts during the Great Depression, and was imprisoned and threatened with deportation for her radical activity. Her father James ran as a Socialist Party candidate for the New Jersey Senate. In the 1980s Roz visited the Soviet Union with her father, and they were seated in first class on a flight between Tbilisi and Moscow, which outraged her father who asserted that there ought to be no classes in the Soviet Union. At the age of 13, Roz's mother took her to a memorial service for Emmett Till in Los Angeles. While attending grammar school in Los Angeles, Roz had a Japanese friend, Linda Fukuyama, who had been interned during World War 2.

Roz Payne's extensive documentation of the 1960s has provided a significant source of archival film material of groups like the Black Panthers, which has been used in documentary films like Chicago 10 (2007). Much of her work is now digitized and available via the Roz Payne Sixties Archive, a project run by historian Patrick Jones of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Political activism In the 1960s Payne was involved in the Venceremos Brigade which organized trips to Cuba in solidarity with Cubans against the United States embargo against Cuba.

In 1972, Payne and other members of the Newsreel collective relocated to Vermont and established the Red Clover commune in Putney, which she described as a "political collective", referring to herself as a "politico". In the same year, she was also involved in the establishment of the Vermont Women's Health Center (VWHC), which was intended to provide abortions and other reproductive health services. Opposition to the health center was anticipated, and so ahead of the planned opening on Monday morning, Roz became the first patient treated with a blood test on Sunday evening, as it was believed that it would be harder to close down the health center if it had already begun providing health services. She eventually settled in Richmond, Vermont, where she helped establish the People's Free Clinic.

Payne was also friends with leaders of the Weather Underground and members of the Yippies.

In 1981, Payne began working as a legal investigator and law clerk in the office of Burlington attorney Sandy Baird, and completed the Vermont Law Clerk Program between 1985 and 1989.

Roz Payne died on May 21, 2019 at the age of 78. She was survived by her daughter Sierra and her granddaughter Del.