John Parker

John Thompson Parker was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. His career experience includes working as a coordinator for the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice.[1][2]

Parker has been affiliated with the following organizations:[2]

Socialist Unity Party

Struggle-la Lucha Newspaper

Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice

Peace & Freedom Party

John Parker did not complete [the profile publisher]'s 2026 Candidate Connection survey.

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

John Parker is a long-time socialist, activist, anti-war and anti-racist organizer. He is the founder of the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice, and a leader in the Socialist Unity Party. He is running for U.S. Congress in the 37th District that incorporates much of South Los Angeles, and will be on the ballot as a Peace and Freedom Party candidate. Parker isn't asking for reforms.

"What we need is a whole new system. Racism, war, poverty and the destruction of the planet are built in to capitalism.

We need a powerful, united people's movement to overcome the tiny handful of billionaires that are exploiting us all, funding and enabling genocide in Gaza, and driving down the living standards of the global working class."

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

End the genocide in Palestine. Permanent ceasefire NOW!People and planet over profit!Abolish racist police terror!

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, anti-racism, anti-gender oppression.

Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow, and why?

Marx, Lenin, Lucy Parsons, Clara Zetkin, Harriet Tubman, Geronimo, Ho Chi Minh, John Brown, Amilcar Cabral, Rosa Luxembourg, Assata Shakur, Mao Zedong.... the list goes on.

Is there a book, essay, film, or something else you would recommend to someone who wants to understand your political philosophy?

Check out Struggle-la-Lucha.org.

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

The courage to stand with the people. Inability to be bought and sold by war profiteers and the rich.

What do you believe are the core responsibilities for someone elected to this office?

The core responsibility of this office is to fight for those who do not have a voice—the majority of poor and working people in our districts.

What is the first historical event that happened in your lifetime that you remember? How old were you at the time?

The struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the arrest of Nelson Mandela drove me to become politically active.

What was your very first job? How long did you have it?

I was a dishwasher in New Jersey until I left for junior college and New York University.

What do you perceive to be the United States' greatest challenges as a nation over the next decade?

The United States is a waning empire. As the ruling class scrambles to ensure their continued viability and profits, living conditions for the majority will continue to crumble. Poverty, homelessness, even illiteracy will skyrocket as more public dollars are diverted to the war economy and away from essential public services and needs.

Do you believe that compromise is necessary or desirable for policymaking?

All reforms should raise consciousness of our constituents that this system must change. We cannot reform our way out of poverty and exploitation if those reforms maintain the status quo.

Campaign website

Parker’s campaign website stated the following:

End the occupation & genocide in Palestine

Call for an immediate cessation of U.S. and Israeli wars and proxy wars and the funding of wars and occupations.

Demand an executive order for an immediate and indefinite ceasefire.

Demand an opening of all borders into Palestine for the delivery of genuine humanitarian aids, including grassroots brigades.

Immediately halt all military and financial support to racist apartheid "Israel."

Charge US and "Israeli" officials and war profiteers for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Demand the US sign onto South Africa’s charges of genocide in the ICJ

Divest all US tax dollars from "Israeli" and Zionist institutions

People & Planet over Profit

Divert the hundreds of billions of dollars for war to funding vital social programs and for use in programs to reverse poverty, homelessness and environmental damage.

Immediately call for a state of emergency in Black and Brown neighborhoods to address police murder with the initial step of ceasing the use of deadly force by police in communities where a majority of residents are Black or Latinx.

Demand community control of police and alternatives to policing.

Institute a referendum calling for the conversion of privately owned vital industry into public ownership.

Roll back prices on essential goods and utilities.

Prosecute price gouging on essential goods and utilities.

Expand SNAP benefits.

Raise the minimum wage to $30/hr and all wages proportionally, and pay back-pay starting from March 2020.

Make education, food, housing, healthcare, and jobs a human right.

All workers have a right to a union.

Expand the rights of LGBTQI+ people to healthcare and bodily autonomy, and enshrine these in law.

Reinstate abortion rights.

Freedom of movement for migrants.

Free all political prisoners.[5]

—John Parker's campaign website (2024)[6]

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

John Parker is the coordinator of the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice and leading member of the Socialist Unity Party. He accompanied former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark on many anti-war delegations abroad. Parker was only 18 when he organized his first union election--at a small steel plant in New Jersey. An African American, he has worked at a variety of other jobs, including teaching at a public school in Newark.

After moving to Los Angeles with his family in 1998, he became a leader in the anti-war movement. Parker sparked the minimum wage increase proposals in Los Angeles by being the first to author and initiate the Los Angeles $15 minimum wage ballot initiative in 2013 that would have taken effect immediately upon voter approval.

Parker recently attended the inauguration of socialist President Xiomara Castro at the invitation of her Libre Party, due to his solidarity work with Honduras after the 2009 U.S. supported coup.

Legislative/Legal Struggles:

• Initiator and author of $15 Minimum Wage Ballot Initiative of 2014

• Leading current lawsuit against Kroger’s for closing Ralphs grocery store in South Central Los Angeles, on behalf of the plaintiff: Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Los Angeles

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

Call for an immediate cessation of U.S. wars and proxy wars and the funding of wars and occupations; divert the funding to vital social programs and for use in programs to reverse environmental damage, prioritizing global warming.Immediately call for a state of emergency in Black and Brown neighborhoods to address police murder with the initial step of ceasing the use of deadly force by police in communities where a majority of residents are Black or Latinx.Institute a referendum calling for the conversion of privately owned vital industry into public ownership

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

It has become crystal clear during this pandemic and the current push by the U.S. -led NATO for World War III, that the institutions in this country, and those who support them and enable them, can no longer be trusted to provide even the most basic protections of life, and increasingly threaten the existence of others beyond its borders. It is therefore time to take a sober look at our world and the rapidly deteriorating effects this systemic incompetence is having on our communities, our workplaces and our families.

The two-party system in the U.S. of Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same coin, funded by and serving the same corporate masters. Their politicians, in general, will continue to make decisions of war, climate change, growing economic impoverishment and racist and sexist state repression based on the sole motivation of maximizing profits for their masters - who have ultimate control over the use of those profits. It’s our work, day in and day out that make those profits possible, yet this system does not allow us any real say in the consistent decision to spend trillions on war and relative pennies on social necessities. This will only change when corporate and financial monopoly ownership of the industries of production and finance are transferred to the majority – to those who it oppresses and exploits. This campaign is about building a movement to make that systemic change possible.

Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow, and why?

I look up to those who struggled to make this world a more just and equitable world. People who believed in using science and applying that science to the understanding of society for the betterment of working and poor peoples, especially those most oppressed by capitalist society. Therefore my heroes are Harriet Tubman, George Jackson, Karl Marx, Lucy Parsons, Martin Luther King Jr., Lenin, Macolm X, Mao, Claudia Jones, Ho Chi Min, Rosa Luxembourg, Amilcar Cabral, Che, Fidel, Leila Khalid, Patrice Lumumba and many many more who have said over and over emphatically in word and deed – that this system of exploitation, oppression, war and poverty must come to an end.

What is the first historical event that happened in your lifetime that you remember? How old were you at the time?

The first historical even I remember occurred while watching the civil rights marches with my parents at the age of 6.

What was your very first job? How long did you have it?

My first job was as a dishwasher at the age of 14, which lasted for 1 year.