Professor Irwin Corey (1914-2017)

Professor Irwin Corey was consider a great intellectual and social commentator. Even the best of US comedians thought that he was by far the most talented in method, message and delivery.This great man lived into his 103rd year of life and was a committed and outspoken Communist. He is one of the few people to have lived into the 21st century who had been persecuted and blacklisted for his political views during the McCarthy Era. Indeed, despite his immense popularity amongst the ordinary American people, Professor Irwin Corey remained blacklisted by the US media (and government) until the time of his passing in 2017. He was born in poverty and forced to walk the US looking for work. He became a very talented featherweight boxer in his youth – becoming a Golden Gloves Champion. He is famous for selling magazines in the street and donating the money to buy medicines for children who were suffering in Socialist Cuba due to the ongoing (and illegal) US Blockade. Although threatened with arrest and imprisonment if he did not disown his Communist viewpoints, Professor Irwin refused. He said that the anti-Soviet allegations implicit in US Cold War propaganda did not match the facts in reality. His humour is very dialectically advanced.