Encouragement

 

The Heavy Sides Of December

Merle Haggard - If We Make It Through December

Si Kahn - Detroit December

Hard Candy Christmas - Dolly Parton

I Remember, I Believe performed by Sweet Honey in the Rock

 

Warrior Met Bides Time While UMWA Continues to Support the Fight

This union fight in Alabama has been going on for 15 months. At its base, this fight is about two very different ways of seeing the world and deciding whether people or profits are more important. Remaining out on strike for 15 months is a faith journey.
 

It takes love and heart...

National Public Radio ran a story today that got my full attention. The story is about a blended African American family in Aberdeen, Maryland that has had more than their share of hard knocks and has survived and is making do through focused love and a get-and-give-back way of thinking. This is not just a hard-luck story with a message that reinforces someone's hard-work ethic or another story about Black despair. The people at the heart of this story are keyed to the task of maintaining their relationships with one another and with those around them. This necessarily involves a heightened sense of community and justice. And I think that it takes great faith to do what they're doing every day.

For me, it is not that these people are extraordinary, although I'm sure that they are, but that their story is shared by so many people to one degree or another and that they represent us, Black and white working-class people, so well.

This story takes seven minutes to listen to. This might be the best thing that you're going to hear today. The Ferrens family and radio host Rachel Martin and reporter Alana Wise made this story work.

Listen to the story here.

Here is the beginning of NPR's transcript of the story:

High inflation, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, grown children moving back home - issues that remind us how for all the ways that we're different, Americans have a lot in common right now. Today, NPR's Alana Wise reports on how one Black family keeps perspective and thrives during these times.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOG BARKING)

TYRONE FERRENS: Shut up, shut up.

ALANA WISE, BYLINE: A fluffy white handful of a dog greets visitors at the Ferrens house.

T FERRENS: This is the only biological child we have together. His name is Ashe Ferrens.

WISE: Tyrone Ferrens and his family are a tightly knit blended group. Between Ferrens and his wife, Michele, the family has six children.

T FERRENS: I have two, and my wife has four. And so we're like the real-life Brady Bunch.

WISE: Since the start of the pandemic, two of the couple's adult children have returned home. The children saw their finances stunted by the pandemic while it energized their parents' professional growth. Michele had been a retired respiratory therapist. When the pandemic hit, she found her expertise in high demand.

MICHELE FERRENS: They were offering large amounts of money for people to come to these hospitals, but it was out of necessity.

WISE: But the money alone wasn't enough to put Michele in harm's way.

M FERRENS: You have to believe in something. You have to have a love for it and a heart for people to do it. It's not money that gets you to go and do things.

Pick up the rest here.

June18th Mobilization Tour In Memphis, TN---The Poor People's Campaign Is On The Move

 

On Traumas and Struggles

 

Marz - Said I AM---Give this clip a chance and learn something

 

Workers' Solidarity

We began this blog with a quote from "Out of this Furnace" by Thomas Bell, still one of the best works of fiction written about working-class life. The graphics below tell a story of unions ad working-class life.

  

From the Teamsters Union.

Billy Bragg -There Is Power In A Union

The text reads:

On this date in 1933 (Sunday), Barney Graham, United Mine Workers President and Socialist, was shot dead in front of the Wilder Company Store. Shorty Green and Doc Thompson used a machine-gun borrowed from the 109th Cav of the Tennessee National Guard which they also held off Sheriffs Deputies of Fentress County with for over four hours. This was in retaliation for Graham supposedly being an Influencer in the murder of George and Floyd Winningham. The Miners of Wilder had no way to fight back after having all their firearms confiscated in August of 1932 by the Guardsmen.

Workers' Memorial Day Is On Thursday, April 28---And We Need To Get Organized!

And from the Teamsters Union...

A friendly reminder...

 

"Ride Out Your Storm"---A Song/Hymn For All Of Us

 

Bishop William J. Barber II, preaching "The Moral Mandate for a Mass Poor People's Low-Wage Worker's Assembly" LIVE from National City Christian Church in Washington D.C.

 

Thresholds are thin spaces...