Andrea Lewis, A Beautiful Voice

Andrea Lewis, radio host at KPFA and a contributing writer for The Progressive magazine and Progressive Media Project, died this weekend of a massive heart attack. She was only 52.

She could write quickly and well on a whole range of subjects, but she was especially interested in combating racism, sexism, and homophobia.

The last Progressive Media Project piece she wrote was about Billie Jean King receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

“King’s most memorable battles were not fought on the tennis court,” she wrote. “She lived as an out lesbian before it was remotely fashionable to do so. She fought for equal pay for women athletes, and by extension, women in general.” (For a compendium of her Progressive Media Project columns, click here.)

Andrea also applauded Billie Jean King for being “fluid and graceful.”

Those adjectives apply to Andrea, as well.

She was a natural at radio. Her voice was smooth, her manner conversational. And she knew how to listen. And she knew how to laugh. I always loved talking with her on the air. It was breezy and fun, even when the news was bleak.

I last saw Andrea this May when she helped co-host The Progressive’s 100th anniversary celebration in Madison, Wis.

She did so with her usual aplomb (and for no money, I might add).

She and I would do tag-team introductions, and her impromptu intro for Dolores Huerta was especially moving.

During the conference, she also participated on a panel entitled “Defending Civil Rights for All.” She talked about the various oppressions she’d had to deal with her whole life: being black, being female, being a lesbian, being a woman of size, and becoming disabled. She stressed how important it was for all of us to call out bigotry of every stripe—and not to let it slide.

She reiterated that point in the last thing she wrote for The Progressive: her picks for “Favorite Books of 2009.” One book that she chose was Time Wise’s “Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama.”

“Wise’s analysis is centered on, but not limited to, black/white race relations in the United States,” she wrote. “Ultimately, however, his message is to whites, whom he challenges to speak out against racism wherever and whenever it occurs.”

She was proud of what she’d achieved in journalism, including being selected as a member of the Stanford University Knight Journalism Fellowship Class of 2008. And she was proud to have a quotation from her 2005 interview with Barbara Lee included in The Progressive’s 100th anniversary edition in April. The quote was: “Congress gave the President a blank check to wage an undefined war against an undefined enemy for an undefined period of time. We shouldn’t have given him that authority.” (To read that interview in its entirety, click here.)

Andrea Lewis was a woman with many talents. She sang in a S.F. choir, she knew music backwards and forwards, she read widely, she was a lifelong golfer, and she was an avid sports fan.

But beyond her accomplishments, she was just a lovely woman.