WHO IS BARBARA BLONG?

Barbara Blong is a longtime educator and political and environmental
activist. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, her early education was in fine
arts, literature, and languages. In the 1960s she focused on grassroots
organizing and education among women. She worked on civic projects in
Tamiagua, Veracruz, Mexico, which included creating a lending library and
a community-run health care center.

Moving to San Francisco with her daughter Xana, Barbara collaborated in
the creation of a childcare center and an elementary school where she
taught various subjects. During the 1970s and 1980s she taught in San
Francisco public schools, worked as a buyer/distributor for a city-wide
food co-op and as a gardener and union activist at San Francisco State
University. Using her fluency in both Spanish and French, she
also wrote and translated for various progressive publications here and
abroad.

In the mid-1970s Barbara ran for the California State Senate in San
Francisco receiving 6% of the vote.

Barbara was one of the founding organizers of the Green Party in San
Francisco and was elected to the 1992 and 1994 County Councils with the
highest number of votes. As part of her current work with the Greens,
Barbara co-founded the Anti-Poverty Coalition, a direct action and
educational group formed to advocate for the homeless in San Francisco
and to end Mayor Frank Jordan's "matrix" program. She is also active in
the grassroots campaign to support full employment legislation at the
federal level.

Long concerned with issues of women's equality, she researched grassroots
women's organizations in various countries including Cuba, Nicaragua, and
the former Soviet Union. Currently, she is coordinating study groups and
the Green Talk lecture series on various topics including women's
empowerment within the context of today's environmental, economic, and
social crises.

She is now finishing work on her master's degree thesis - a discussion of
women's central roles in the sustenance of twentieth-century societies.
Barbara is using the developing theory of ecofeminism to articulate the
relationship between the destruction of the environment and the
degradation of women within patriarchal society. She believes dominance
and exploitation of peoples and the earth cannot fit
today's awareness of the interconnectedness of all life.

Barbara is running for U.S. Senate on a Green platform that calls for
nonviolence, partnership and hope for both men and women and for the planet.

Birth Date: February 14, 1944

Birth Place: St. Louis, Missouri

Education: B.A., San Francisco State University. Currently
completing a master's degree at SFSU in Women's Studies

Current Work: Educator, Massage Therapist, Gardener

Elected Office:San Francisco Green Party County Council 1992 and 1994

Children: Daughter, age 24

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