Vol. 72/No. 9      March 3, 2008

Over the past decade, Dookhun has been a leader of Socialist Workers Party branches in New York, Birmingham, Alabama; Newark, New Jersey; Price, Utah; and most recently, Pittsburgh, where he worked in a pillow factory.

Dookhun joined the Young Socialists in 1993, a year after moving to the United States from South Africa, where he had participated in a mass struggle to overthrow the system of apartheid, or white minority rule. In South Africa, Dookhun was a member of the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League.

In 1996 and 1997, Dookhun helped organize large delegations of youth to go to Cuba for a U.S./Cuba Youth Exchange and for the World Festival of Youth and Students.

Dookhun ran for U.S. Senate on the Socialist Workers Party ticket in New Jersey in 2002 and Pennsylvania in 2006. As a candidate for U.S. Congress in 2004, he helped lead efforts nationally to get the socialist presidential ticket on the ballot in a number of states.

Dookhun worked as a coal miner in Utah and Pennsylvania. After a mine collapse killed six miners at the Crandall Canyon mine near Huntington, Utah, last August, Dookhun was part of the team of Militant reporters providing on-the-scene coverage. He also helped get the paper out broadly to miners in the region, exchanging experiences with fellow workers on how to organize to use union power to defend life and limb on the job.

Dookhun has also written on international developments for the paper, including the national elections in India in 2004 and struggles among miners in South Africa.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home