The Green Party of the United States held its presidential nominating convention, a virtual convention, this past weekend. The nominees are Howie Hawkins, a co-founder of the party and the first candidate to bring the Green New Deal to the US, for president and Angela Walker for vice president. Both are members of the working class – a retired Teamster and a truckdriver. Both are also lifelong socialists who are working to build the Green Patry and build unity among the Left in the US. We speak with Howie and Angela about the times in which we live, why they are running and what they hope to accomplish through their campaign.
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Howie Hawkins is the original Green New Dealer, the first US candidate to campaign for a Green New Deal in 2010. He is also one of the original Greens in the United States, having participated in the first national meeting to organize a US Green Party in St. Paul, Minnesota in August 1984. Howie became active in “The Movement” for civil rights and against the war in Vietnam in the 1960s as a teenager in the San Francisco Bay Area. Repelled by the racism and warmongering he saw in both major parties, he asked, “Where is my party?” From the start, he was committed to independent working-class politics for a democratic, socialist, and ecological society. Read the full bio here.
Angela Walker is an independent socialist who describes herself as “a Fred Hampton, Assata Shakur socialist.” She was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to a working-class Black family. She learned early that though money was necessary to live in this society, it was less important than integrity, cooperation, and dignity. This upbringing shaped the activist and organizer she later became. Angela attended Bay View High School in Milwaukee, graduating in 1992. She and a group of Black students petitioned for and received an African American history class at their predominantly White school. Angela became a member of the Army Reserve in August 1992, and began classes at the Milwaukee Area Technical College in 1993, after the birth of her daughter. In late 1993, Angela and her daughter, Epiphany, relocated to Jacksonville, Florida. Read the full bio here.