Roger Hickey

Hickey began his career as an organizer in the late 1960s while attending the University of Virginia, working with the Virginia Students Civil Rights Committee[1] and the Southern Student Organizing Committee.[2] In 1972 he joined Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam (CALC), an organization of religious leaders opposed to the US war in Vietnam.[3] Hickey was a producer for CALC’s "Help Unsell the War" campaign, creating TV, radio, and print advertisements that expressed opposition to the war.[4]

In 1973 Hickey co-founded the Public Media Center in San Francisco.[2] As Media Director, he developed advertising campaigns for environmental groups, peace and disarmament organizations, labor unions, women's and minority education, and other public interest issues.[5] The Public Media Center won the first FCC Fairness Doctrine ruling requiring broadcasters to provide free air time for antinuclear TV spots in response to pro-nuclear utility advertising.[5]

Hickey was an associate director of the National Center for Economic Alternatives,[6] and during the Jimmy Carter administration, he—along with Mark Green and Gar Alperovitz—organized Consumers Opposed to Inflation in the Necessities (COIN),[7] which "mobilized over sixty organizations addressing the needs of consumers, senior citizens, the environment, and energy supply, as well as gaining broad support from organized labor" to support a progressive program to control inflation.[7]

In 1986, Hickey collaborated with economist Jeff Faux to establish the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).[8] Hickey served as EPI's Vice President and Director of Communications.[8]

Hickey is co-director of the Campaign for America's Future (CAF), launched in 1996.[8] CAF bills itself as a "strategy center of the progressive movement".[9] Most recently, under the auspices of CAF, he co-authored "The Solidarity Agenda", a 5-point economic agenda signed by 100 citizen leaders and activists.[10] Their statement calls for a "citizens' movement that will stand up to big money and fight for economic changes that will build a prosperous and sustainable American economy, create economic growth and opportunity for all, and reverse inequality".[11]

As co-director (with Robert Borosage) of CAF and the Institute for America's Future, Hickey also organized a series of annual "Take Back America" conferences that brought together thinkers and progressive activists, media, and elected-officials.[12] In 2008, he was a founder of Health Care for America Now!, a coalition of over 1,000 national and local organizations aimed at reforming the US healthcare system and securing health insurance for all Americans.[13][14] Working with Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker, Hickey helped promote the public option, a policy that was endorsed by candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.[15] During the Bush administration, he and CAF helped lead a campaign to stop the privatization of Social Security, called Americans United to Protect Social Security.[13] Hickey, Borosage, and others created the Apollo Alliance to advocate for a public investment program on the scale of the US Moon mission.[16] The goal of the alliance is to dramatically reduce greenhouse emissions and create sustainable jobs.[17]

Hickey has appeared on television and radio,[18] and has written for a number of publications including The New York Times,[19] The American Prospect,[20] AlterNet,[21] Common Dreams,[22] HuffPost,[2] The Nation,[23] and Truthout.[24] In 2001, Hickey and Robert Borosage co-edited The Next Agenda: Blueprint for a New Progressive Movement,[25] a book of essays written by some of America’s "most progressive thinkers and activists" at the time.[26]

• Appearances on C-SPAN