Taken, Not Given

Campaign Updates!

Happy belated-Labor day everyone! We are now exactly one week away from the preliminary election.

This past Sunday, I held a large canvassing bonanza! 16 of us took to the streets of the highlands to spread a message of hope and change. Every day, the momentum for real change in our city grows and I truly believe if we continue to work extremely hard for the next week we will be capable of moving on to the general election.

Yesterday, on Labor day, I tabled at the Bread and Roses Festival held in Lawrence alongside Merrimack Valley DSA cadres informing and advocating for passage of the Safe Communities Act - an act aimed at truly protecting our immigrant communities from the escalating war against them. To learn more about the act, click here, and to add your name to the petition, click here.

Upcoming:

Today, Tuesday, September 2 embedded below: Final District 8 Debate on InsideLowell
Tomorrow, Wednesday, September 3 at 7PM District 8 Forum for Spanish Speakers Sunday, September 7 at Tyler Park 1PM: Final Canvassing Push! RSVP here

Sometime this week: Our mailer will be hitting the doors of 1000 Lowellians!

A World To Win

Labor day in America is an interesting topic considering much of the world celebrates workers on May 1. Labor day celebrations in September began in Canada and spread sparsely in America, but soon began to lose out in popularity to the newer more internationally recognized May 1st – International Workers Day/May Day – celebration because of its connection to the Haymarket Massacre and long struggle by workers to improve their own material conditions.

The Haymarket massacre refers to the bloody conflict of May 4, 1886 whence Chicago police forces marched on workers organizing for the eight hour work day and opened fire after a bomb set off. Once police fire died down, dozens of those demonstrating were injured and many died. The tragedy continued with a sham trial, targeting political opponents - socialists and anarchists, most of which were not at the rally. In commemoration of this government assault on labor,  international socialist groups and American unions – also at the time filled with socialists –  began to celebrate this holiday on May 1st. When choosing an official date for Labor day, the choice was clear for President Grover Cleveland who, in wanting to quell the socialist movement, set Labor Day to the first Monday of every September, disrupting international labor solidarity and stripping it of its revolutionary character.

Police mobilization and brutality against labor organizing is nothing new - it is in fact, quite in line with how our capitalist system operates. From the Haymarket affair to December of 2024, when New York City police officers arrested workers showing solidarity with striking Amazon workers, or – in the spirit of the Bread and Roses festival I attended – when Lawrence textile workers fighting for increased wages went on strike in 1912. During the two month strike, police thugs came down upon the community, killing and injuring workers, mothers, and children.

An important aspect of the Bread and Roses strike is its character as a great majority of the textile workers were immigrant women. As is the case today, immigrants and women remain a sub-class of workers to be exploited even more than their white male counterparts. For this reason, when the chauvinistic white-dominated American Federation of Labor (AFL) refused to support the striking workers of Lawrence, the Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World, IWW) assisted in organizing the workers, including IWW founder William “Big Bill” Haywood.

Immigrants and women have always been a backbone to the labor movement - whether taking to the streets directly or by providing critical support in the background. For this reason, the strike would eventually be dubbed the Bread and Roses strike, alluding to an Helen Todd speech in 1910 of the same name demanding not only subsistence for workers and their families but also the construction of a world which brings joy. James Oppenheimer’s 1911 poem also of the same name is a product of this fame and inspiration - I attach it below because I find the poem to be powerful.

As we march towards a better world, we must continue in the spirit of Chicago Black Panther and martyr Fred Hampton. Hampton founded the Rainbow Coalition at just 21 years-old because he had understood that a better world could only be built by taking care of every single one of us. This means breaking through racial and gender material and psychosocial barriers imposed on us by elites and uniting all community members around a clear program of change.

This lesson must extend to our very own city. To build a Lowell which does away with demographic gaps in housing, healthcare, education, childcare, and transit access, we must break from the isolating conditions we find ourselves in and speak with our neighbors to better understand and support each other. We also must increase support to on-the-ground community organizations already doing the work to civically engage, support, and connect our diverse working class communities. Only in this way will we continue to build a stronger network of solidarity in our city and develop the people power necessary to pressure our local legislature into molding a Lowell where we all thrive and get to live a dignified life.

The lesson, if not clear by now, is that your enemy is not to your left or right, but above you. Only we will be capable of building a Lowell and world which takes care of everyone. There is a reason for the saying: “Thank a union, and if you aren't in one, still - thank a union!”. Everything worth earning has been taken by organized workers who have shed blood, sweat, and tears; our conditions will never improve by the good graces of those in power. When done right, unions are a site of democratic economic control, political agitation and education, and are ultimately a space for expanding our imagined possibilities for the future. We have a world to win and it can only be done by moving together as one, united in cause and in spirit.

Vote and Volunteer

With early voting opening again and the election next Tuesday, I just want to reiterate the importance of taking part in your local elections. Local elections are one important way to directly and rapidly impact your living environment and whether the effect is positive or negative depends on people voting. Local leaders have a platform to reach communities and give voice to important issues, so the quality and beliefs of a leader matters as well, especially in these times when we have seen both parties worsen the lives of the workers of this country.

If you want to help place true working class representation in our city council, please sign up to door knock with me anytime this week including Sunday, when I will be holding the final large canvassing push for this preliminary election.

To end, a quote by Bill Haywood, founder of the Wobblies and a collaborator and leader of the Bread and Roses strike, who addressed workers after successfully organizing for better working conditions:

“Single handed you are helpless but united you can win everything. You have won over the opposed power of the city, state, and national administrations, against the opposition of the combined forces of capitalism, in face of the armed forces. You have won by your solidarity and your brains and your muscle.”

Neighbor, Son-of-immigrants, and Believer-in-a-better-world,

Marcos Antonio Candido Jr.