Introducing Angela Walker, 2020 Vice-Presidential Nominee for the Green Party

Story by the Green Party 

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.

While living in Florida, Angela attended the University of North Florida. She began as an education major with the intention of becoming a special education teacher. She decided later to change her major to history, a subject she remains passionate about today. The need for extra income in college led Angela to take a job driving a school bus in 2001, and she left college to drive full time because she loved the work.

The first mass mobilization Angela attended was during the demand for the recount of ballots in the 2000 Florida election. She joined a contingent of people who traveled to Tallahassee, Florida to protest widespread discrepancies with the ballots in the election. That experience marked the first of many protests she would attend, and illustrated the power of people coming together to stand up for their rights. In subsequent years, Angela would participate in actions against the war in Iraq in New York and Washington, DC while a driver for Greyhound Lines.

In 2009, she returned to her home city and began work with the Milwaukee County Transit System. In 2011, newly elected Wisconsin governor Scott Walker launched an attack on unions from the state capitol, Madison. Thousands of union workers and their supporters occupied the Capitol building and grounds in protest. Angela, a member of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 998, was among the protesters. As a result of her involvement in the protests, the then-president of her union local appointed her Legislative Director for the local.

As Legislative Director, Angela served for two years. During this time, she helped make the union part of the Occupy Wisconsin and Occupy the Hood movements, she marched with union officers in support of striking Palermo’s Pizza workers, and participated in actions with the Fight for 15, postal workers, educators, healthcare workers and striking machinists in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. She helped organize efforts to inform transit riders about proposed cuts to service and transit access, and assist in securing the necessary funding for the transit system. Angela fought for basic funding for the Milwaukee County Transit System by speaking at state legislative hearings, advocating for working families.

In 2014, Angela was approached by Rick Kissell, a lifelong socialist and friend, to run as an independent socialist against the cowboy-hatted incumbent, Sheriff David Clarke. The campaign served as a platform to discuss the root causes of crime in Milwaukee, which included the incarceration of people for nonviolent marijuana offenses, the reduction of access to adequate healthcare, un- and underemployment in the inner city, blighted neighborhoods created by foreclosures, and the pervasive systemic racism at the core of these issues. The campaign earned twenty percent of the vote in the election and got the attention of the Left across the country.

Angela went to work for Wisconsin Jobs Now in 2015, as Community Campaigns Coordinator for the organization. Her work focused primarily on resistance to the privatization of public schools in Milwaukee. During her time with the organization, she was approached by Emidio “Mimi” Soltysik of the Socialist Party USA about running for Vice President of the United States. She agreed to be Mimi’s running mate for the 2016 election. Despite SPUSA’s limited ballot access on the continental United States, the Soltysik/Walker ticket did well in Guam, garnering four percent of the vote there. When Wisconsin Jobs Now folded in late 2016, Angela moved to South Carolina to regroup and reconsider her relationship to activism and politics.

Initially, on arrival in South Carolina, Angela worked as a substitute teacher at the secondary education level. During the summer break of 2017, she began work as a dump truck driver and continues that work presently. When Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins asked her about being his running mate for the 2020 presidential election, Angela stated “how could I say no?”.

Angela Walker is the mother of one, and the grandmother of five. She is a fierce advocate for the rights of Black, Brown and Indigenous people, the LGBTQIA community, Labor and the Earth itself.