Red Emma’s

With Marc Steiner, and dedicated to the memory of recently departed community solutions activist Jerry Raitzyk.America faces huge challenges—climate change, social injustice, racist violence, economic insecurity. Journalist Sarah van Gelder suspected that there were solutions, and she went looking for them, not in the centers of power, where people are richly rewarded for their allegiance to the status quo, but off the beaten track, in rural communities, small towns, and neglected urban neighborhoods. She bought a used pickup truck and camper and set off on a 12,000-mile journey through eighteen states, dozens of cities and towns, and five Indian reservations. From the ranches of Montana to the coalfields of Kentucky to the urban cores of Chicago and Detroit, van Gelder discovered people and communities who are remaking America from the ground up. Join us at Red Emma's on February 2 as Sarah shares the stories of the quirky and the committed, the local heroes and the healers who, under the mass media's radar, are getting stuff done!