Maria Svart

Maria L. Svart is the National Director of Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in the United States. She has been National Director since June 2011. She succeeded Frank Llewellyn, who had announced earlier that year that he was stepping down after ten years.

Svart had been a member of DSA since 2004. She first joined as a member of the University of Chicago Young Democratic Socialists chapter and quickly became active at the national level, serving as the feminist issues coordinator on the YDS Coordinating Committee and then co-chair for several terms. Her campus activism, through YDS and other student organizations, focused on feminist, environmental, immigrant rights, anti-war and labor solidarity work.

After college, Svart became a campus organizer with the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MASSPIRG), while simultaneously helping successive YDS organizers and leaders begin to bridge the generational gap between YDS and DSA. After MASSPIRG, Svart worked seven years for the labor movement, with the Service Employees International Union and the Committee of Interns & Residents/SEIU Healthcare. At CIR, she organized resident physicians to speak out in support of Medicaid and funding for safety-net hospitals.

She served as chair of the New York City DSA local and was elected to the National Political Committee at the 2009 DSA convention. On the NPC, Svart has chaired the Program Committee, which has provided materials and guidance that have helped DSA locals and YDS chapters participate in the fight against state and federal budget cuts and to defend the rights of public employees. Throughout involvement in DSA, Maria has stressed the importance of understanding how patriarchy, racism, and other structures of oppression intersect with capitalism; the need to train more activists in the skills necessary to intervene effectively in politics; and the "crucial role of both public and internal socialist education in the building of our movement".^[1]

References

External links

Constitution of the DSA. dsausa.org Retrieved February 25, 2010.

• Young Democratic Socialists official website — youth affiliate of the DSA.
• National Public Radio segment on the burgeoning interest in the DSA