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Lifetime Achievement Award
2010 Award Recipients:
Jackie Kendall and Steve Max of the Midwest Academy
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Jackie Kendall
As an organizer, trainer, and executive director of the Midwest Academy, Jackie Kendall has worked for three decades to develop leaders, train organizers and build the capacity of progressive organizations and institutions at local, state and national levels. (e.g. Children’s Defense Fund, Sierra Club, Smokeless State Coalitions (winning numerous Clean Indoor Air ordinances), New Jersey Citizen Action, Wisconsin Education Association, Wisconsin Citizen Action, Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, MO ProVote, USAction).
Kendall has overseen the development of the Midwest Academy Summer Intern and Fellows program, the Grassroots Organizing Weekends (GROW) program of the United States Student Association (USSA); Trainer-Training for several large organizations including USSA, Planned Parenthood, Union of Concerned Scientists, NAACP, AARP American Cancer Society); Advanced training and supervisory programs for mid and senior level organizers.
Co-authored “Organizing for Social Change” - Midwest Academy Training Manual Kim Bobo, Jackie Kendall, Steve Max; Seven Locks Press
Steve Max
Steve Max will always call the block in New York City where he was born, raised, and still lives his home. But as an organizer, he has spent a lifetime criss-crossing the country heading up campaigns for economic and social justice.
Max cut his organizing teeth on the 1958 Youth March for Integrated Schools and was a founding member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). In the late sixties, he turned his attention to electoral organizing and worked on a number of campaigns including those of Eugene McCarthy for President and Bella Abzug for Congress.
In 1973, he was recruited by Heather Booth to join with her, Paul Booth, and friends from the student movement to create the first Midwest Academy curriculum. Over the last 30 years, Max has overseen improvements on the original core curriculum while maintaining the integrity of the founding principles. He has written the internal training curriculums for the Academy’s largest clients including AARP, US Student Association, American Cancer Society, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Planned Parenthood.
Unable to resist a good fight, Max has taken several leaves from Midwest Academy to lead national and statewide issue campaigns to stop oil deregulation, reauthorize Superfund, develop wind power, and stop the privatization of Social Security. Most recently he has worked with USAction and its affiliates in Michigan, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Arizona.
Max possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of social movement theory and his true genius can be found in his ability to teach progressives about the economic and political context in which we organize. He’s a natural teacher, making complex concepts understandable and endearing himself to legions of Midwest Academy graduates who proudly identify as “Maxists”.
Co-authored:
Organizing for Social Change – Midwest Academy Manual for Activists by Kim Bobo, Jackie Kendall, Steve Max (Seven Locks Press, 1991, 1996, 2001). With over 50,000 copies sold, it can be found on the bookshelves of organizers nationwide.
Citizen Action and the New American Populism, Heather Booth, Harry Boyte, Steve Max (Temple University Press, 1986)
Previous Recipients:
2008: Mr. Paul Booth, AFSCME
2009: Mr. Robert Creamer, Strategic Consulting Group
Ro
bert Creamer has been a political organizer and strategist for almost four decades. He and his firm, the Strategic Consulting Group, work with many of the country's most significant issue campaigns. He was one of the major architects and organizers of the successful campaign to defeat the privatization of Social Security. He is a consultant to the campaigns to pass universal health care, reform the financial regulatory system, change America's budget priorities and enact comprehensive immigration reform.
bert Creamer has been a political organizer and strategist for almost four decades. He and his firm, the Strategic Consulting Group, work with many of the country's most significant issue campaigns. He was one of the major architects and organizers of the successful campaign to defeat the privatization of Social Security. He is a consultant to the campaigns to pass universal health care, reform the financial regulatory system, change America's budget priorities and enact comprehensive immigration reform. He has also worked on hundreds of electoral campaigns at the local, state and national level, and writes regularly for the Huffington Post. Creamer is married to Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky from Illinois.
Arianna Huffington calls his recent book, Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, a master's class in electoral politics.
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Trainings
The Midwest Academy advances movements for progressive social change by teaching strategic, rigorous, results-oriented approach to social action and organization building. The Academy provides training (introductory and advanced) and consulting, equipping organizers, leaders, and their organizations to think and act strategically to win justice for all.
