More than 150 people protested at Chevron’s annual shareholder meeting on May 30, 2012. The protest included workers at Chevron’s Richmond refinery and local advocates from Richmond. (Photo: Caroline Bennett / Rainforest Action Network)
Can progressive coalitions unite around common interests to successfully battle powerful foes? Yes is the answer, as this interview with Steve Early about his book Refinery Town reveals.
Mark Karlin: What are the demographics of Richmond, California, and its contrast to its neighbors, such as Berkeley?
Steve Early: Richmond is a blue-collar city of 110,000, just a few miles from Berkeley. It is 80 percent non-white. About 40 percent of its population is Latino, 30 percent African American, and 10 percent Asian. Nearly one-fifth of its families live at or near the poverty line. It has the lowest median income of 101 cities in the nine-county Bay Area and Latino family income is about $5,000 a year less than that citywide figure.
It’s definitely not a university town, like Berkeley. It’s been a city of industry for more than a century, growing up around a railhead and ferry to San Francisco, a Standard Oil refinery and a port area that included, during World War II, a Kaiser shipyard employing 100,000 workers.
What is the role of Chevron and the Chevron refinery in Richmond politics?
Until the early 21st century, Richmond City Hall and municipal politics were dominated by Chevron (nee Standard Oil). Big Oil is Richmond’s largest employer and a reliable patron of old-guard Democrats, Black or white, eager to do its bidding. Chevron’s…