The brief biography that follows gives a scant outline of Tim's many activities and achievements. For more detail, see the twelve-hour oral history conducted by Harvey Schwartz in 1998, sponsored by the Labor Archives. The tapes as well as a transcription are available to researchers.

Timothy J. Sampson was born in Chicago in 1935. His father, Jerome Sampson, was a social worker; his mother was diagnosed as a schizophrenic and died when Tim and his younger sister were children. Tim attended the University of Chicago for two years after high school, dropped out, and returned after a stint in the US Army, to graduate in 1960. By that time he had married Nancy Curtis Stickney, a graduate of UC Berkeley's School of Social Work. In 1962 he received a Masters in Social Work from the University of Southern California with his thesis "An Inquiry into Knowledge about Stages or Phases of Group Development: Significance for Social Groups Work" which is in the collection.

Through this period of his life, Tim worked in community centers in Chicago, New York, Washington DC, and Los Angeles. Among his noteworthy jobs was his work in the black community at the Avalon-Carver Community Center in South Central Los Angeles. In 1965 he worked for the California Center for Community Development as field director for public housing tenants and rural community development in Del Rey, California. There, he trained for two weeks under noted community organizer, Saul Alinsky, a friend of his father's. He adopted the "Alinsky method" of empowering those at the bottom of society through grass-root community organizing. At this time he actively supported the United Farm Workers during their early grape strike.

In 1967 Tim moved his family, now with two children, to Washington where he joined George Wiley in working for welfare rights. He lobbied the Johnson and Nixon administrations as part of this work and was active in the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) whose archives are at the Historical Society of Wisconsin. When George Wiley moved on to the Movement for Economic Justice (MEJ), Tim wrote the phrase for MEJ which he claimed as his major contribution to history: "Robin Hood was Right".

Tim wrote a book at this time based on his welfare rights work. Published in 1972, Welfare: A Handbook for Friend and Foe is part of the collection. In the introduction, Tim summarized his early work in social justice.

In 1970 Tim joined the SFSU faculty in the Department of Social Work, eventually receiving tenure and later promotion to full professor. The latter was supported by more than on hundred letters of recommendation from former students, colleagues, community leaders, union leaders and many others; letters are in this collection.

While teaching full-time, Tim remained comitted to community organizing. In the 1970s he organized for SEIU the Department of Social Services for the City and County of San Francisco and was active in many other fights for public employees including janitors and hospital workers.

In this period Tim became active in the Citizens Action League (CAL); the collection contains a video interview on his work with CAL. Through CAL, he helped organize the Electricity and Gas for People Campaign, as well as campaigns for lifeline utlity rates and a fair tax plan or "tax justice".

Tim was active in the SFSU faculty unions, serving as the last president of UPC before it lost representation. He then helped through the difficult period of urging UPC members to accept the California Faculty Association. On campus Tim was probably best known as a CFA leader and was elected president of the SFSU chapter for three terms, 1987-93. He also held a variety of CFA state-wide offices. For years he was the SFSU/CFA representative to the San Francisco Labor Council where he served on numerous committees and at the twice-monthly meetings was a voice of justice from the floor.

Tim was a strong supporter of SEIU, Local 87 (janitors) and Local 150 (hospital workers) and was often called upon to speak for their causes. He led the campaign for organizing home care workers with SEIU Local 616 and the Labor Projects for Working Families.

In addition to working with labor, Tim played a role in many activist groups in the Bay Area. His vision, strategy, and style made him a leader throughout the labor movement. In 1984 he helped found the Western Workers Labor Heritage Festival and was the recipient of their “Labor Arts Award” in 2000. Among many organizations he was active in are the Center for Third World Organizing, Applied Research Center, and Californians for Justice.

Tim retired from teaching in 2000 after thirty years at SFSU. The collection includes an audio cassette of his retirement party on campus. In retirement, he remained active in CFA, served as a member of the Kaiser-Oakland Senior Advisory Committee, and joined Nancy as a member of Older Women’s League (OWL). In 2001 under the auspices of the state federation of AFL-CIO, he organized the people’s campaign on the energy crisis with six rallies around the state.

Tim was known for his humor, his skill as a wordsmith, and his love for singing. He authored many chants and poems and adapted many songs for demonstrations, rallies, and strikes. He sang with the Freedom Network and the San Francisco Bay Area ‘Rockin’ Solidarity Labor Chorus, in the latter by his wife and son Peter. In 1982 for the Citizens Action League, he edited and published The Ding Dong Dollar Song Book, part of his collection. For years he worked with Mike Miller on a quarterly, The Organizing Mailing, a collection of articles, clippings, and material of interest to organizers which had a wide distribution.

Tim always had ideas involving organizing, strategies, and resource development. He was known for finding the compromise that would bring groups together. His energy at times seemed boundless as he went from meeting to meeting in his T shirts with justice messages, his socks always matching the colors in his T shirt. Although he became proficient with the computer, he mainly scratched notes to people, ending with “Onward.”

Tim died on December 24, 2001 after a short illness with cancer. There were many memorials, both vocal and written. Among these were the community celebration in Oakland on January 6, 2002 and the SFSU celebration on February 4.