Bill Samuels (political activist)
William Christie Samuels is a political activist and businessman who resided in New York and now lives in Rhode Island. He was the founder of the good government group EffectiveNY and is currently the chairman of the board of the Howard Samuels Policy Center. He was awarded the 2011 Common Cause Award for outstanding commitment to government and as an innovating political thinker and the 2017 Center for Popular Democracy Social Justice Award. Samuels was Chairman and CEO of ACTV, Inc. and founded Resonant Software. He was instrumental in getting the inclusive New York State Equal Rights Amendment onto the ballot in 2024. Early life and background Samuels was raised upstate in Canandaigua, New York, the son of Howard and Barbara Samuels. His father Howard J. Samuels served as U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce under President Lyndon B. Johnson, was Director of the Small Business Administration and founded Kordite, which made Baggies and Hefty. The company was sold to Mobil Oil in 1958. In 1974, his father ran for Governor with Mario Cuomo as his Lieutenant Governor ultimately losing to Hugh Carey. Samuels attended MIT where he earned undergraduate degrees in political science, economics, and engineering. He later graduated from Harvard Law School. After law school he started an education company, APC Skills, dedicated to training entry level workers who lacked the skills to get and keep a job, which was a priority of President Johnson's War on Poverty. In 1987 the company merged with the Alexander Proudfoot company which had offices in the U.S., Europe, Brazil and Mexico. In 1988, it became a publicly traded company on the London exchange (symbol MMC). Samuels was a pioneer in the introduction of interactive television. He built ACTV, as a start up, with the Washington Post as a major investor. In 1990 it went public on NASDAQ (symbol IATV). In 2002, the company was sold to Liberty Media. He also started the Silicon Valley technology company, Resonant Software, and sold it to Ipipeline in 2017. Activism and political involvement Council of Economic Priorities In 1969, right out of law school, Samuels was one of the founders of the non-profit The Council of Economic Priorities (CEP). The Council produced research on major public companies’ records on the environment, women and minority advancement, tobacco support, South Africa involvement, and other social issues. It was an early predecessor of today’s Environmental, and Social and Governance ( ESG) efforts. John Kerry Samuels raised money and supported John Kerry’s Vietnam Veterans Against the War March on Washington on April 23,1971. This is where Kerry made the famous statement “how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?” In 2004, Samuels produced and financed George Butler's “Going Upriver, The Long War of John Kerry,” which was released during Kerry’s Presidential campaign and countered the Republican Swift Boat attacks. Civil Rights, Gramercy Park In January 2001, a group of largely minority school children were legally invited to Gramercy Park, the only private park