Harrington, Michael (1928–1989)

US writer and activist. During Harrington's four decades as the USA's leading Socialist thinker, writer, and speaker, he contributed to every progressive movement. His book The Other America is credited with spurring the Great Society anti-poverty programmes. Throughout his involvement in the student and civil-rights movements in the 1950s and 1960s, and his leadership of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in the 1970s and 1980s, he consistently urged Socialists to reach beyond isolation and build coalitions with labour and progressive groups in day-to-day struggles. As DSOC and DSA's representative to the Socialist International, he earned the respect, and the ear, of socialist leaders throughout the world.