Katherine “Kitty” Dukakis, wife of former Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democratic Party nominee for president Michael Dukakis, has died. She was 88.
A lifelong resident of Massachusetts, Kitty Dukakis served as first lady of the commonwealth across her husband’s three non-consecutive terms, from 1975 to 1979 and again from 1983 to 1991.
Michael Dukakis announced his campaign in Boston in March 1987 and was selected as the Democratic nominee for president at the party’s convention in Atlanta the following summer. Michael Dukakis would end up losing the race to then-Vice President George H. W. Bush.
Kitty Dukakis worked for a number of important issues, including women’s rights, human rights, and the environment.
She was a founding member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum after having been appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the President’s Commission on the Holocaust. She has also served on the board of directors of the Refugee Policy Group and Refugees International, according to a biography of her posted on Northeastern University’s Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy website.
She was also active locally, having been director from 1985 to 1989 of Program on Public Space Partnerships, a joint program between the John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.
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