An Evening with Chris Smalls at Huxley and Hiro

Huxley and Hiro thrilled to host author and activist Chris Smalls for an evening discussion on his debut memoir When The Revolution Comes: A Fight For The Future Of The Working Class! Moderated by Jeffrey Richardson, it promises to be an evening of insight and inspiration!

Book Description:

In the early days of the Covid pandemic, warehouse worker Chris Smalls and his colleagues continued showing up as the rest of the world was shutting down. A dedicated and experienced Amazon employee, increasingly frustrated by the inner workings of the retail giant, Smalls had already felt himself reaching a breaking point. So, when coworkers around him began falling ill, and with no transparency or assurances of safety coming from those in charge, he made the only choice left available to him. He staged a walkout with friend Derrick Palmer, eventually finding himself on the picket line without a job. But what began as a demand to keep essential employees safe in a crisis would grow into a movement devoted to achieving dignity and security for the American wage worker, sparking a groundswell of organizers at the most notable companies across the nation—including Starbucks, Trader Joe's, and Apple—and leading to lasting change for labor.

When the Revolution Comes is the riveting inside story of how a young Black man from Hackensack, NJ with little-to-no resources led a scrappy band of Staten Island warehouse workers in an improbable fight against Amazon, the second largest private employer in the U.S., and won. This epic David-and-Goliath tale traces Smalls’ dramatic story, from a childhood spent navigating his dad’s stints in and out of Pr*son to his early pursuits of a career in music; from his years of sacrifice and economic uncertainty as a father of three, fighting a miasma of warehouse managerial politics in an effort to make ends meet, to his ascension as the leader of a new generation’s labor movement. Along the way, he details lessons learned from a life spent working paycheck-to-paycheck, advocating for those around him, and persevering in the face of adversity, and shares how those lessons helped him build the coalition that became the first-ever union of American Amazon workers.

A deeply personal and eye-opening account of the creation of the Amazon Labor Union, When the Revolution Comes is both a searing exposé of what it’s like to be working class in America today as well as the empowering story of what is possible when the overworked, underpaid, and disempowered join together, a movement born in community.

About the Author:

Chris Smalls is the co-founder and former president of the Amazon Labor Union. Under his leadership, the ALU successfully unionized an Amazon warehouse: a historic victory for workers' rights in America. A Fortune “40 Under 40” honoree, he was named one of the 100 most influential people of 2022 by Time magazine, alongside his fellow union organizer Derrick Palmer. When the Revolution Comes is his first book.

About the Moderator:

Jeffrey L. Richardson is an educator, organizational consultant, activist/organizer, and singer-songwriter. He leads the social venture solar company, Imani Energy, Inc. A faculty member in the University of Delaware, Department of Africana Studies, he teaches courses on Africana philosophy and environmental justice. Jeffrey is active in local environmental and economic justice initiatives, including the Delaware Community Benefits Agreement Coalition. A native of Pittsburgh, PA, he spent many years as a community organizer, receiving his organizing training in South Los Angeles on a massive campaign to support reductions in military spending to provide more funding for basic human needs. Jeffrey directed organizing campaigns in his hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, around spending priorities, ending police brutality, and equitable economic development. Richardson served as the Leadership Development Director for the National Congress for Community Economic Development (NCCED) based in Washington, DC, directing a team that provided training in economic development best practices for job creation and identification of financing and partnerships between the private sector and community economic development organizations nationwide.

He returned to LA, where he served as organizing director for a historic campaign of a majority African-American workforce for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1877 and as interim deputy director for Karen Bass, the former Speaker Emeritus of the California Assembly, who also served as a US Congress member and is the current mayor of Los Angeles. He managed a city council election in his hometown, Pittsburgh, PA, and several successful municipal ballot initiatives. He has conducted organizing trainings in cities across the country. Jeffrey was an active participant in the Free South Africa Movement, Housing Now, the Peace Movement, and anti-intervention movements and wrote on these topics during his career as a professional journalist for the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the nation’s oldest Black newspapers. He has traveled to West Africa, the Caribbean, and Central America on fact-finding and cultural missions.

Jeffrey is also a singer/songwriter who connects cultural production with social and political commentary for mass education. You can find his music at Bandcamp.com (https://jeffreylrichardson.bandcamp.com/). He obtained his BS in journalism and master’s in philosophy from Ohio University.

Books will be available for purchase at the event.

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