Liberty lost a great champion today when Lee Wrights passed away just a few months shy of his 59th birthday. Lee, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, spent decades as a libertarian activist and journalist.
After college degrees in history and journalism, Lee became a contributing editor for the Eagle News, a monthly political news and commentary newspaper in Forsyth County. Wrights founded Liberty for All with J. Michael Bragg in 2000, a free speech publication with the motto “Let Your Voice Be Heard” which claimed “no one is turned away and no one is censored.”
In 2001, Wrights became an editor of Free Market Daily, an e-mail newsletter. A year later, he helped to found the Rational Review News Digest, a daily web and email-based news and commentary roundup. From 2005 to 2008, Wrights worked as editor of the Choice Channel for the International Society for Individual Liberty, now Liberty International.
Wrights has been active in local, state and national Libertarian Party organizations since 2000 and is a lifetime member of the Libertarian Party (LP). He has served as secretary and chair of the Libertarian Party of Forsyth County, N.C. and was vice chair of the Libertarian Party of North Carolina (LPNC) for seven years. He also served as the LPNC ballot access director for two years.
Wrights served twice as the Vice Chair of Libertarian National Committee (LNC), and an at-large member. He was a member of the LNC’s platform committee and judicial committee as well. Lee chaired the Burnet County LP of Texas and was the Senate District 24 representative to the Texas LP State Executive Committee. In 2008, Wrights was my campaign manager when I ran for the 2008 presidential nomination for the LP; in 2010, he managed my campaign for Texas State Comptroller.
Wrights was also the president of the Foundation for a Free Society, a non-profit educational organization dedicated to promoting the principles of liberty, personal sovereignty, private property, and free markets.
Lee ran for the 2012 presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party with the goal of stopping all war, referring not only to war with foreign nations, but also to war on the American people and their civil liberties waged by the U.S. government. Wrights was defeated by former New Mexico Governor, Gary Johnson.
For the past few years, Lee has handled several libertarian Facebook pages, including my own. He has inspired friends and fans with his trademark “Reddpaw” memes.
Lee leaves behind supporters from all over the world, as well as his two daughters, parents, brothers and sisters, and other family. He will be sorely missed by his close friends who love him dearly, myself included.
I’m going to really miss that man
Mary, I am so saddened by this terrible loss, not only to the Libertarian movement, not only to Liberty—but especially to you. Lee was, indeed, a champion of liberty who enriched the lives of all those he encountered. We are all impoverished by his untimely passing.
With my deepest, most profound sympathy . . .
Truly sad. Rest in peace.