Eric Mann was born on December 4,1942 and is a civil rights, anti-war, labor, and environmental organizer whose career spans more than 50 years.
20 Facts About Eric Mann
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Eric Mann has worked with the Congress of Racial Equality, Newark Community Union Project, Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panther Party, the United Automobile Workers and the New Directions Movement.
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Eric Mann was active as a leader of SDS faction the Weathermen, which later became the militant left-wing organization Weather Underground.
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Eric Mann was arrested in September 1969 for participation in a direct action against the Harvard Center for International Affairs 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.
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Eric Mann was instrumental in the movement that helped to keep a General Motors assembly plant in Van Nuys, California open for ten years.
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Eric Mann is known for his theory of transformative organizing and leadership of political movements and is acknowledged by many as an effective organizer.
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Eric 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.
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In 1964 Eric Mann graduated from Cornell University with a BA in Political Science and a minor in Industrial and Labor Relations.
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Organizers from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee traveled to Cornell to recruit students into the civil rights movement and at 21 Eric Mann went to work for the Congress of Racial Equality.
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At CORE, Eric Mann worked as field secretary for the Northeastern regional office on an anti-discrimination campaign against the Trailways Bus Company.
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In 1965 Eric Mann joined the Newark Community Union Project.
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Eric Mann worked with organizers Bessie and Thurman Smith, Tom Hayden, 100 community members, and 10 students in door-to-door organizing in Newark's Black South and Central wards where they engaged low-income people in movement-building, challenging slum housing and police brutality.
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The New York World Journal Tribune wrote that Eric Mann put the school system on trial with 500 parents rallying to his defense.
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Eric Mann was elected to the national committee of SDS in 1968.
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Eric Mann was sentenced to two years in prison of which he spent 18 months in the Middlesex House of Correction, Deer Island Prison, and Concord State Prison.
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From 1972 to 1974 Eric Mann was a full-time journalist, writing for Boston After Dark, the Boston Phoenix, and The Boston Globe.
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At the Boston Globe, Eric Mann co-wrote the column "Left Field Stands" with Boston University history professor Howard Zinn.
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In 1975 Eric Mann joined the Chicano-led August 29th Movement.
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Eric Mann worked on automobile assembly lines as an active member of the United Auto Workers and "transformative organizer" from 1978 to 1986, moving from the Ford assembly plant in Milpitas, California, to the General Motors assembly plant in South Gate, Los Angeles, California, to the General Motors plant in Van Nuys, California.
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Eric Mann led the founding of the National School for Strategic Organizing that educates and trains future leaders.