By Mary Brienza, Staff Writer
Former Kendall Park resident and social activist Alice Glazer died at the age of 86 on Monday in Boulder, Colorado, according to her son, Barry Glazer.
Mr. Glazer, an associate English professor at Middlesex County College and a Kendall Park resident, said his late mother was the “conscience of Kendall Park” and touched the lives of everyone she met. He had visited her the day before she died, he said.
Mr. Glazer said his mother participated in many rallies, marches and demonstrations.
He said some of the causes she marched for included the 1963 march for civil rights in Washington, D.C. led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968, and marches that protested military action in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Iraq.
”She was also a staunch supporter of organized labor and workers’ rights,” Mr. Glazer said.
Mr. Glazer said she was raised in New York City by a traditional working class Jewish family, and during World War II, she was a “Rosie the Riveter,” a nickname given to women who worked on the home front supporting the war effort by working in factories,
”She worked for Grumman Aircraft in Long Island riveting wings onto aircraft for the war effort,” he said.
She married Gene Glazer in 1952, moved to Brooklyn, New York, then Franklin Township, and then in 1961 moved to Kendall Park where she lived for 40 years, Mr. Blazer said. Her husband Gene was on the Board of Education and passed away in 2007, Mr. Glazer said.
Mr. Glazer said she was involved in the early civil rights movement, and when the first African American family moved to Kendall Park she was welcoming.
”She went out of her way to make sure they were welcome and accepted,” he said.
Ms. Glazer went to countless rallies and demonstrations to support civil rights, workers, and the anti-war movement in Vietnam and Iraq, Mr. Galzer said. She also supported the Reverend Jessie Jackson, he said.
Mr. Glazer said he remembers going to demonstrations in Washington, D.C. as a 12 or 13 year old.
”She was always fighting,” Mr. Glazer said.
She fought racism, supported labor rights, and supported world peace based on equality and fairness, he said. She was against the Iraq War before it started, Mr. Glazer said.
She did not care if her views were popular, he said.
”Time has shown she was right more than she was wrong,” Mr. Glazer said. “She educated people through her example.”
She also worked at Cambridge School for more than 20 years, Mr. Glazer said. He said his mother taught people that they can stand up for what is right, and touched the lives of everyone she met.”Her legacy was that your voice matters,” Mr. Glazer said. “If people stand together they can bring about profound change.”
Ms. Glazer lived in Boulder, Colorado for the past four years, and suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, he said.
Alzheimer’s is a terminal, incurable form of dementia that affects brain functions including memory, thinking, and decision making, and may affect as many as 5 million Americans, according the Center for Disease Control website.
Ms. Glazer is survived by her two children, Barry and Dara, and a grandson, Alex, 8, Mr. Glazer said.
Mr. Glazer said his mother would wanted Alex to learn to “dig for the truth” and to not “believe everything” he reads or hears in the media.

