Martha “Marty” Arthur Nathan ’73

Martha “Marty” Arthur Nathan ’73, of Northampton, Mass.; Nov. 29, 2021, from complications of heart disease and lung cancer. She continued her education after Brown, graduating from Duke Medical School. It was at Duke that she got involved in worker’s rights and social justice issues, volunteering with her late husband Michael Nathan to screen textile workers for brown lung disease. In November 1979, in Greensboro N.C., her husband Michael Nathan and four others were murdered at an anti-Klan demonstration, an event that later became known as the Greensboro Massacre. Throughout her life, she engaged in anti-war activities and fought for social and racial justice, immigrants’ rights, universal health care, and increasingly for environmental justice, which she felt was inextricably linked to all of these concerns. In 1996, she and her husband Elliot Fratkin moved to Northampton. She worked as a family physician, predominantly with Baystate Brightwood Clinic in Springfield, Mass. She worked determinedly to provide medical care to poor communities, including undocumented immigrants. Her fundraisers to benefit “La Cliniquita” became popular yearly events. In 2009, Marty and her close friend Arky Markham founded the Markham-Nathan Fund for Social Justice (MNF) in honor of their two activist husbands George Markham and Michael Nathan. Since its creation, the MNF has given out grants to activist groups in Western Massachusetts. She was a cofounder of Climate Action Now (CAN) in Western Mass. and participated in marches and demonstrations against oil pipelines transporting fracked gas through the state. She also opposed the creation of a biomass plant in Springfield. As a physician, she spoke often at Northampton and Springfield city council and state house meetings, opposing air and water pollution. In addition to her public speaking, she wrote a monthly column for several years in the Daily Hampshire Gazette on climate change issues. She was the recipient of the 2021 Frances Crowe Award for a lifetime of social justice activism and was a member of the American Board of Family Medicine and Physicians for Social Responsibility. She is survived by her husband, Elliot Fratkin; two daughters; a son and daughter in-law; a son-in-law; and two grandchildren.