Fred and Laura Brode dedicated their lives to politics from an early age. Fred Brode left Germany, his birthplace, as an economic refugee in 1929 to find work in the United States. He arrived in New York City just in time to witness the collapse of The Stock Market. For the next decade, like millions of others, he was unable to find a steady job. He did, however, find a Canadian-born wife, and both became members of a new, anti-Stalinist Communist organization, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

In 1939, still searching for secure employment, the Brodes moved to Houston. Fred subsequently was hired by the Southern Pacific Railroad, a job he held until his retirement in the mid-1970's.

The Brodes were politically active throughout their years in Houston as members of the SWP and later the Revolutionary Marxist Organizing Committee and The Committee for a Revolutionary Socialist Party. Their politics naturally led them to become involved in the struggle for equal rights for ethnic minorities and women in Houston, as well as to correspond and maintain links with people and organizations elsewhere in the United States and abroad. In addition, Fred served as chairperson of the Houston Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the Houston May Day Committee, and the Labor Solidarity Committee. He was a founder of the Houston Marxist Collective and Study Group and the owner-operator of Connumard Publishers, which specialized in re-printing Marxist classics. Fred Brode died in 1982 shortly after his 75th birthday.