ATLANTA — John Benson, a longtime leader of the Socialist Workers Party, died here March 6 after a brief struggle with aggressive leukemia. He was 84 years old.
Benson, speaking here at 2015 SWP conference, joined the Young Socialist Alliance in 1962 while a student at Carleton College in Minnesota, and the SWP later that year.
During his 64 years building the party, Benson served on the SWP’s National Committee for several decades. He helped lead many branches around the country, carried out responsibilities for building the international communist movement and worked in several industrial jobs, from an oil refinery in California to a chicken processing plant in Carrollton, Georgia, always as a union builder.
A celebration of his life and political contributions to the party will be held in April in Atlanta and covered in the Militant. Details will be forthcoming.