Marian Kramer

A long-time activist for civil rights, Marian Kramer has made a commitment to the advocacy of economic justice for poor women and their children. She has been a dedicated activist in the welfare rights movement since 1966. Kramer is involved in the movement as both founder and president of the National Welfare Rights Union. In 1989 Kramer helped to form the National Up and Out of Poverty NOW Coalition and now serves as its co-president. She has organized lower-income and welfare recipients to challenge public asistance policies and was an outspoken crusader against the 1996 welfare repeal bill. Kramer was one of the founders of an early workers' rights organization called the League of Revolutionary for Black Workers. She also served as a full-time organizer for the Congress Of Racial Equality (CORE) in Louisiana during the 1960's as well as for the West Central Organization in Detroit, Michigan.

In the late 1990s, Kramer discovered that the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department was shutting off running water to thousands of Detroit-area residents who had gotten behind on their bills, without giving those low-income citizens any help or even the opportunity to appeal. Together with Vallory Johnson she co-founded the Highland Park Human Rights Coalition. She has continued to press the Highland Park City Council to address the exorbitant estimated water and sewage bills, and to stop the placing of delinquent water bills on property taxes. Town hall meetings called by the Union in the late 1990s at first attracted only a few dozen residents. Soon, a few hundred residents attended. As a result of her tireless work, she has been nominated as a finalist for the prestigious Purpose Prize of the organization Civic Ventures.