John Maher is receiving this year’s Michael Harrington Lifetime Socialist Award. After decades of activism as an anti-war organizer, a public school teacher and Boston Teacher Union steward and director of education and outreach for Oxfam, in 1990s John took the helm at Neighbor to Neighbor (N2N). He started with N2N as an organizer of the Salvadoran coffee boycott and then helped lead the redirection of N2N from Central American solidarity work to domestic reforms. Here in Massachusetts, he led the Jobs with Justice/N2N campaign for single payer through successful local referenda in 1994. As Director of Massachusetts N2N, John completely upgraded the state program and gave it a new focus. Through grassroots organizing and leadership development in the state’s low-income communities and involvement in the Working Family Agenda, a coalition John helped found in 1997, N2N is now working to build a progressive majority in the Commonwealth’s politics. John feels this program is a crucial element in building a renewed socialist movement. In December of 2000, John retired as Director, having greatly strengthened N2N-MA’s program, staff, and resources. He is currently continuing to work at N2N on improving the work of low-income leadership development in the local chapters, while becoming involved once again in progressive labor and socialist organizing at the national level and abroad.
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