Topic: Michael Harrington

Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington (February 24, 1928  — July 31, 1989) was an American democratic socialist, writer, political activist, professor of political science, radio commentator and founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Michael Harrington was born in St. Louis, Missouri on February 24, 1928. He attended St. Louis University High School, where he was a classmate (class of 1944) of Thomas Anthony Dooley III. He later attended the College of the Holy Cross, the University of Chicago (MA in English Literature), and Yale Law School. As a young man, he was interested in both leftwing politics and Catholicism. Fittingly, he joined Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker movement, a pacifist group that advocated a radical interpretation of the Gospel. Above all else, Harrington was an intellectual. He loved arguing about culture and politics, preferably over beer, and his Jesuit education made him a fine debater and rhetorician. Harrington was an editor of The Catholic Worker from 1951 to 1953. However, Harrington became disillusioned with religion and, although he would always retain a certain affection for Catholic culture, he ultimately became an atheist.

Harrington married Stephanie Gervis, a free lance writer and staff writer for the Village Voice, on May 30, 1963.