Eric Mann, the director of the Labor/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles, is a veteran of the Congress of Racial Equality, Students for a Democratic Society, and the United Auto Workers, where he worked on auto assembly lines for ten years. He is the  author of Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer and Comrade George: An investigation into the Life, Political thought, and Assassination of George Jackson.