Tim Wheeler

Tim Wheeler

Overview

* National Board member of the Communist Party USA
* Was a prominent figure in Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign


Tim Wheeler is a National Board member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), and has been a key figure in the party’s Baltimore chapter since the early 1970s. From 1991 to 2003 he was editor of the CPUSA newspaper People’s Weekly World, and he currently serves as the publication’s national political correspondent.

In March 2005, Wheeler and his wife, Joyce Wheeler, co-authored a People’s Weekly World article titled “Renew Voting Rights!” The piece focused on a recent 10,000-person demonstration in Selma, Alabama commemorating the 40th anniversary of so-called “Bloody Sunday” —  when voting-rights marchers had been clubbed and tear-gassed by Alabama troopers on March 7, 1965.

According to the Wheelers, “31 percent of African American males in Alabama are [still] denied the right to vote, mostly due to disenfranchisement of former felons.” The authors quoted Coretta Scott King’s assertion that this “is a form of taxation without representation” which must be ended, and that all manner of “devious tricks” are routinely used “to keep us [blacks] from voting.”

The Wheeler article also quoted former Martin Luther King aide C.T. Vivian’s call for black people to march “all over again” because “our needs are not being met,” and Jesse Jackson’s claim that “the fight for the right to vote continues.”

In 2008 Wheeler became a prominent figure in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. He helped organize local canvassing and visibility events for the candidate, and he chronicled his experiences on the campaign trail in a blog that appeared on the Obama campaign website.

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