American trade unionist and environmental activist from New York. A co-founder of the Green Party of the United States, Hawkins is the party’s presumptive presidential nominee in the 2020 presidential election. His primary campaign issues include enacting an eco-socialist Green New Deal, which he first proposed in 2010, and building a viable, independent working-class political and social movement in opposition to the Democratic and Republican parties and capitalism in general.
Hawkins has played leading roles in anti-war, anti-nuclear, and pro-worker movements since the 1960s. Hawkins is a retired teamster and construction worker; from 2001 until his retirement in 2017, Hawkins worked the night shift unloading trucks for UPS.
As a perennial candidate Hawkins has run for various offices on twenty-four occasions, all unsuccessfully. He was New York’s Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2006. In 2010, Hawkins ran as the Green Party’s candidate for Governor of New York, which restored ballot status for the party when it received more than the necessary 50,000 votes. In 2014, Hawkins ran again for the same office and received five percent of the vote. Hawkins ran for Mayor of Syracuse in 2017 and received four percent (about 1,000) of votes. He then ran a third time for Governor of New York in 2018 but received less than two percent of the vote.
Hawkins has written articles on politics, economics, and environmental issues for various publications. He is the editor of, and a contributor to, Independent Politics: The Green Party Strategy Debate (Haymarket Books, 2006).
Link to Wikipedia biography