All of his life, Adam Shapiro fought for or championed something.
Born prematurely, weighing barely two pounds, Mr. Shapiro spent his early days in a fight for his life. Rendered blind days after birth from over-exposure to pure oxygen, his sisters said, he never let his lack of sight blur his vision of a better world.
“He was incessantly curious,” said his sister, Laura E. Shapiro. “He was not afraid to engage people in conversation about anything.”
And those conversations sometimes happened within earshot of the audience of his weekly “Current Events” radio program on WRFG 89.3 FM. It was when he missed his show on Sept. 13 that station management became concerned about him. Mr. Shapiro was found dead in his Atlanta apartment. It is suspected he died in his sleep of natural causes a day or so earlier, his sisters said. He was 59.
A memorial service is planned for 2:30 p.m. Thursday at the Congregation Bet Haverim, which meets at the Central Congregational United Church of Christ on Clairmont Road.
Mr. Shapiro started working in radio while he attended Adelphi University. Though he didn’t graduate, he loved to learn, said his sister, Janet Model.
“He really wanted to teach,” said Ms. Model, who lives on Long Island. “He loved history and I know he would have loved teaching history on a college campus somewhere.”
When the Shapiro family moved to Atlanta in 1981, Mr. Shapiro wasn’t thrilled about it. But when his sister Laura was ready to head back to New York in 1997, he decided not to leave. He’d made friends and began working with several activist groups around town.
“We don’t know how he had the time to be involved in all of the things he was involved in,” said Ms. Shapiro, who lives in Boston. “And in all of these organizations, he somehow ended up on the board or as a co-chair or something.”
Among the groups and organizations Mr. Shapiro worked with were the Georgia Green Party, the metro Atlanta chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and the Open Door Community.
Ms. Shapiro said her brother had a habit of wanting to hear a person’s opinion first-hand, not read about or hear someone else’s interpretation of it.
“I’ll never forget, he went to hear [Louis] Farrakhan when he was at the Georgia Dome,” she said of the minister’s 1992 visit. “He wanted to hear Farrakhan for himself. He’d already read and heard what others said, but this was a chance to hear it straight from the man and he didn’t miss that chance.”
Mr. Shapiro had a wide range of interests and was more interested in understanding a person’s point of view than trying to change that point of view, friends and family said.
Rabbi Joshua Lesser, of the Congregation Bet Haverim, said Mr. Shapiro, “had a keen awareness of justice in the world. He understood the need to take care of the common good. He wanted to elevate oppression in many forms.”
“Social justice was Adam’s faith,” Rabbi Lesser said. “While he definitely identified as Jewish, there was a way that he was also a universalist.”
About the Author
