“This is the labor movement. This is justice.”
[Stir It Up Editor’s Note: The post below is by Kellyn Lewis, a student leader of the Northwestern Living Wage Campaign. It is a reflection on his participation in UNITE HERE’s July 22 national action (see In These Times).]
On July 22nd, I saw the world. I was sitting in the middle of one of Chicago's largest downtown streets, East Wacker Dr., outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel shouting, "We are Human Beings! Enough is Enough!" To my left, I had locked arms with one of my best college running mates, and fellow Northwestern Living Wage Campaign leader. And to my right, I felt the intense presence of a housekeeping worker in a Chicago hotel covered by Unite Here! Their chants echoed into my ears as I bellowed out the cry for social justice, the cry for worker humanity. It was a meditation chant. Our words hummed along side the thousands who had lined up at the edge of the Chicago River to support the nation’s labor movement. While I had worked with these workers in the past, and had led a student rally of over 400 people on my campus, being locked tight with the people I stand for each day invigorated my senses.
It was at this moment that I began to drift off into another place. My conscious mind had control of my chants, and my subconscious wandered. Endlessly through the thoughts and abyss of my mind (the jungle that my new privileged position of higher education has brought me). It shifted over the pages of Marx, Rawls, Berlin, and all the radical philosophers I iconize on a daily basis. I also reminisced about all the ups and downs my entire extended family has had with social position, with class, with race. My grandparents who fought their whole lives just as the workers are now doing. My parents who themselves have gone through tumultuous financial crises.
In that moment, a moment of solidarity among a crowd, and internal solitude in the “radical” social theories, I felt at home. My physical reality, the reality that I was doing something for the people that were so much like the people that raised me, and my spiritual reality, the spirit of radically enlightened thought, merged. This is the labor movement. This is justice. And it is this powerful feeling that can envelope our generation, whether you come from the highest social order to the lowest socio-economic background. It is this place that we should all as college students strive for. Do not over look a social movement, in all of its political tactics, because it is this history of social change that defines us all. This is what campuses need, and my peers that are involved with the campus campaign saw this too. It is a necessity to visualize this social position when you read about injustice, and to embody your learned knowledge when you take action. This is the state of social change.
(Photo by Jerome Grand)
