Eric Mann

For the British philatelist and cricketer, see Eric W. Mann. For the beef farmer and politician, see Eric John Allan Mann.
Eric Mann
Born (1942-12-04) December 4, 1942 (age 81)
Brooklyn, New York, US
Alma materCornell University
Known forCongress of Racial Equality (Field Secretary)
Students for a Democratic Society (New England Coordinator)
Labor/Community Campaign to Keep GM Van Nuys Open (Lead Organizer)
Labor/Community Strategy Center (Director)
Weather Underground
(Coordinator)
Websitevoicesfromthefrontlines.com

Eric Mann (born December 4, 1942) is a civil rights, anti-war, labor, and environmental organizer whose career spans more than 50 years.[1] He has worked with the Congress of Racial Equality, Newark Community Union Project, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Black Panther Party, the United Automobile Workers (including eight years on auto assembly lines) and the New Directions Movement. He was also active as a leader of SDS faction the Weathermen, which later became the militant left-wing organization Weather Underground.[2] He was arrested in September 1969 for participation in a direct action against the Harvard Center for International Affairs[3][4] and sentenced to two years in prison on charges of conspiracy to commit murder after two bullets were fired through a window of the Cambridge police headquarters on November 8, 1969.[5] He was instrumental in the movement that helped to keep a General Motors assembly plant in Van Nuys, California open for ten years.[6][7] Mann has been credited for helping to shape the environmental justice movement in the U.S.[8] He founded the Labor/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles, California and has been its director for 25 years. In addition, Mann is founder and co-chair of the Bus Riders Union, which sued the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority for what it called “transit racism”, resulting in a precedent-setting civil rights lawsuit, Labor Community Strategy Center et al. v. MTA.[9][10]

Mann is the author of books published by Beacon Press, Harper & Row and the University of California, which include Taking on General Motors; The Seven Components of Transformative Organizing Theory; and Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer. He is known for his theory of transformative organizing and leadership of political movements and is acknowledged by many as an effective organizer.[11] Mann is host of the weekly radio show Voices from the Frontlines: Your National Movement-Building Show on KPFK Pacifica Radio 90.7 in Los Angeles.

  1. ^ Kelley, Robin (1998). Yo Mama's dysfunctional! Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America. Boston: Beacon Press. p. 154. ISBN 978-0807009413.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference silver was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Doolittle was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Valle, Victor (October 27, 1983). "Laid-Off Workers Take Aim at GM". Los Angeles Times.
  7. ^ Acuña, Rodolfo (2014). Occupied America: A History of Chicanos. Pearson Press. ISBN 978-0205880843.
  8. ^ Peña, Devon (2005). Tierra y Vida: Chicano Environmental Justice Struggles in the Southwest. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. pp. 203–204.
  9. ^ Mann, Eric (1997). "Confronting Transit Racism in Los Angeles". In Johnson, Glen (ed.). Just Transportation: Dismantling Race and Class Barriers to Mobility. New Society Publishers. pp. 68–84. ISBN 978-0865713574.
  10. ^ Lucas, Karen (2004). Running on empty: transport, social exclusion and environmental justice. University of Bristol: Policy Press Books. pp. 220–242. ISBN 978-1861345691.
  11. ^ Soja, Ed (2010). Seeking Spatial Justice. University of Bristol: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 137–138. ISBN 978-0816666683.