Steve Early’s Refinery Town: Big Oil, Big Money, and the Remaking of an American City discusses multi-racial, working class politics through the story of the Richmond Progress Alliance (RPA). Since 2004, RPA candidates have won 10 out of 16 races for mayor or city council. Richmond progressives now have a five-member super-majority on the Richmond council, which includes 26-year old Melvin Willis, a rent control campaign organizer.
Willis finished first in a field of nine candidates last November. As the youngest city councilor in Richmond’s history, he is now helping to implement rent regulation, a roll-back of recent rent hikes affecting thousands of Richmond tenants, and new legal protection against their being evicted without just cause.
Refinery Town includes a Foreword by Bernie Sanders.
For more information on the lessons of successful labor-community organizing in Richmond, you can order Steve’s book directly from the publisher.
Steve and former CWA president Larry Cohen recently discussed the RPA and Our Revolution’s strategy for building local organization at a bookstore event in Washington, DC. Click here to watch it on C-Span Book-TV.
Hundreds have already attended book parties and forums with Steve in dozens of major US cities. See schedule here for more information on upcoming events in Sacramento, Chicago, Minneapolis-St Paul, Portland, Seattle, and other cities click here.