There's never been a more exciting time to be in DSA. As you may have heard, a democratic socialist recently won the New York City mayoral primary.

33-year-old Zohran Mamdani's unexpected victory over former governor Andrew Cuomo in America's biggest city demonstrates the power of politics that centers the material needs of the working class. Amid numerous reasons for despair, it shows that DSA can offer a path forward. It's a moment of national significance, and now we need to take the model nationwide.

You can play a part by joining DSA and getting involved in your local chapter. Scroll down for our calendar of meetings in July.

You'll notice that it doesn't include a chapter or branch meeting. Instead, we've planned a couple outdoor social events for the summer. One of them is tomorrow (6/29)!

Come to Waterbury Center State Park (177 Reservoir Rd.) at 9:30 a.m. or to Stowe's Sterling Pond Trailhead (6443 Mountain Rd.) at 10 a.m. and spend a day in nature with other socialists. You can hang out with us again on July 20 at Burlington's Oakledge Park (11 Flynn Ave.), where a picnic will begin at 4:30 p.m. Feel free to email us at this address if you have any questions about either event.

We're getting folks together in part because we're trying to raise funds for our chapter's elected delegates in advance of the 2025 DSA National Convention in Chicago, where they'll debate resolutions and help choose a new National Political Committee. If we want our chapter's voice represented in August, we need to make sure that our representatives can afford the trip. You can donate here.

Finally, you may have heard that downtown Burlington is getting a new movie theater in the fall. If you noticed its name or read about its democratic governance, you may guessed that socialists had something to do with it. GMDSA has endorsed Partizanfilm, a cooperative, grassroots project to build a not-for-profit cinema for the people. Consider becoming a member! And please tell them we sent you on their signup form.

GMDSA MEETINGS
🚲 GMDSA's Urbanism Committee will meet on Monday, July 7, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

🧑‍🏭 Talk about your job and learn about shop-floor organizing from peers at Workers' Circle (co-hosted by the Green Mountain IWW) on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, including July 9, at 6 p.m. at Migrant Justice (179 S. Winooski Ave., Burlington).

🔨 Our Labor Committee will hold its next meeting on Monday, July 14, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

🗳️ The next meeting of our Electoral Committee will take place on Wednesday, July 16, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

🏳️‍⚧️ Our Gender & Sexuality Committee will meet on Monday, July 21, at 7 p.m. on Zoom.

🤝 Find out how you can help our Membership Committee improve recruitment and involvement in our chapter on Tuesday, July 22, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

🎥 Socialist Film Club will temporarily go remote next month. July's pick is the Italian drama The Working Class Goes to Heaven (1971), available via Solidarity Cinema. After watching it individually at home, we'll discuss it together at Zero Gravity (716 Pine St., Burlington) on Friday, July 25, at 8 p.m.

🍉 Our Palestine Solidarity Committee will meet on Monday, July 28, at 7 p.m. on Zoom.

STATE AND LOCAL NEWS
📰 About 16,500 protesters rallied against President Trump in Burlington on No Kings Day, which may have been the state's most active day of political demonstrations ever.

📰 The Vermont Progressive Party needs a new executive director.

COMMUNITY FLYERS

ROC DSA congratulates Chiara “Kee Kee” Smith and Stanley Martin on electoral victories for Rochester City Council. Stanley’s tally as the highest recipient of votes demonstrates an appetite for meaningful policies that prioritize uplifting the working class rather than enriching developers. We look forward to working with these candidates to continue delivering the means for a dignified life to all the people of Rochester.

We also applaud Kevin Stewart and Kelly Cheatle for their impressive performances as first-time candidates in a crowded field. While Mary Lupien was unable to oust Mayor Malik Evans, her candidacy shook the status quo. There is more to be gained from an election than electoral victory, and ROC DSA’s endorsed candidates injected vibrant socialist politics into the discussion.

This election represented big money versus the people, illustrated by Mayor Evans’ average donation of $603, compared with Mary’s average of $33. Our power came from the efforts of our members, who over the the past four-plus months have petitioned, canvassed, phonebanked, and otherwise supported these campaigns in countless ways.

For this we are stronger. We are proud of our accomplishments, and cherishing of lessons learned. These will be the building blocks of a mass movement that can win the City of Rochester for all of its residents.

The post Chapter Statement on the 2025 Democratic Primaries first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

It’s been two weeks since Trump seized control of California’s national guard and ordered them to join the terror campaign against Angelenos. It has been two weeks since ICE began intensifying their kidnapping of our families and neighbors. But it has also been two weeks of community members fighting back for our community and against fascism. 

We’ve seen Governor Gavin Newsom condemn Trump for deploying federal troops on American citizens, for tearing families apart. Newsom was teary-eyed during his address when talking about the violence enacted by federal agents against immigrant families. We’ve seen him call on Trump to stop the ICE raids and for federal troops to leave California. We agree with these demands, but amongst the chaos and despite the rhetoric, California’s legislature has decided to balance the state budget on the backs of undocumented people.

On June 13, 2025, the California legislation passed a $321.1-billion budget that freezes Medi-Cal access to undocumented residents starting on January 1, 2026. It also requires enrolled undocumented adults to pay $30 monthly premiums beginning July 2027. In addition to this cruelty, Democrats and Republicans alike agreed to cut full dental coverage for undocumented adults starting July 1, 2026. These cuts come at a time when immigrants are more vulnerable than ever, and while California surpassed Japan to become the 4th largest economy in the world. The irony is palpable. 

A finalized budget bill is expected to pass the legislature this Friday with the Medi-Cal restrictions. It is expected to be signed by Newsom and will take effect starting July 1st. 

We, as California Democratic Socialists of America, reject the premise that the only way to balance our budgets is on the backs of our most vulnerable. Instead of cutting vital services, we could be taxing the rich and their corporations to fund these programs and more. If we are to build a California that ensures everyone’s safety, we must abolish I.C.E. and ensure housing, education, good union jobs, and free healthcare for all. 

It is no coincidence that, on the other side of the country, a democratic socialist just won a resounding victory in the Democratic mayoral primary with a campaign that unapologetically stood up against ICE and for all New Yorkers. We call on Democrats in California to not just speak, but do what is best for all of us. In the fourth largest economy in the world, there is no excuse to do otherwise.

From April 20th to May 11th, comrades in MADSA completed a reading and discussion of Vladimir Lenin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Originally written in the first half of 1916 and published as a pamphlet in mid-1917, Lenin’s work analyzing how and why imperialism emerges under capitalism remains a vital resource in developing a stronger understanding of key Marxist concepts and analyses.

For most members of the group, it was their first time ever reading any literature written by Lenin. Most members felt the language of Imperialism was easy to understand and the text was a decent length with a good amount of content to analyze. Imperialism is backed up by quotes from other scholars Lenin was familiar with at the time of writing, as well as tables of data and other evidence for his claims that imperialism is the final (inevitable) stage of capitalism. 

After reading Imperialism, the reading group members felt it was helpful to see how capitalism evolves into imperialism in phases. For some, it was helpful to see with clarity how capitalism evolves into imperialism, and it was easy to make comparisons with how the world functions in 2025. 

As for the logistics of running the reading group, members felt it was great to have a member lead the discussion with key questions or main thoughts to get conversation started. Meeting in person was nice for interacting with comrades, but having it remain hybrid is best for engaging more members in the discussion and allowing flexibility for members who could not join in person. The length of Imperialism was ideal and it was easily divided into 30-40 page readings every week, which was manageable by everyone. 

As for the future of chapter reading groups, members floated the idea of doing more political theory and history discussion in the Slack, so members can ask clarifying questions about topics, answer each other’s questions, or engage in friendly debate about readings. Having discussion questions assigned ahead of time could potentially help structure readings as well.

Overall, the reading group went well and members were excited to continue reading anything in general. Members also felt keeping the reading group casual would allow for other members to explore things to read that aren’t just Karl Marx. 

An important takeaway from reading Imperialism is Lenin’s theory that imperialism is the final stage of capitalism, that it was the natural final stage that arises out of the formation of monopolies, and that capitalism is at that stage has reached a dead end. As socialists, we were able to map out Lenin’s ideas neatly along the problems of the United States, which left us with a burning question: if we are living under the final dead-end stage of capitalism, what happens next? This question inspired us to seek out another work by Lenin, State and Revolution, to hopefully gain more insight into what Lenin believed would occur next. 

With the MADSA chapter steadily growing in membership over the past few months, there has been talk about developing more chapter education initiatives, whether that be more Socialism 101 events or events designed to help people understand specific areas of political theory. It is important that comrades who have the time and energy to read and discuss theory also take the time to educate others, either through book/discussion group reports, posts to Red Madison, or helping to organize educational events. 

We commend our comrades in the chapter for achieving the gargantuan task of completing a reading of Karl Marx’s Capital, as this work serves as the most fundamental basis for our understanding of capitalism and frames our beliefs as socialists. Comrades in the Imperialism reading group have expressed an interest in continuing to read fundamental works from European socialists like Marx, Lenin, Luxembourg, and others. We also agree that we should be taking time to source important works from non-Western/non-European points of view. We would like to invite our comrades to engage more in the chapter reading groups, whether that be posting in Slack to ask questions about our readings and findings, or joining the readings whenever they can.

We were able to access Imperialism for free using the Marxists Internet Archive. A free PDF of Imperialism can be found here.
An annotated version of Imperialism edited by MADSA’s own chapter member Phil Gasper can be found here for purchase.

How Zohran Mamdani’s campaign used positive messaging to inspire a broad coalition of support

Throughout my life, when it comes to politics, no one in my personal life would describe my outlook as especially positive. I am a product of the times, and the times haven’t seen a lot to be very happy about if you’re interested in leftist politics, or the environment, or generally the well being of humanity. 

Something began to change my outlook this past year though, and it wasn’t that Donald Trump got re-elected, in many ways cementing the complete degradation of our two-party system which has been decaying for generations. What changed for me personally was that after several years of being a mostly inactive to passive member of Democratic Socialists of America, I decided to truly engage in community action and get involved in ways that were, at first, pretty uncomfortable for me. 

When I finally decided to show up to an event, I was quite literally immediately welcomed with open arms by several different comrades. The first social I joined, I was introduced to one of the most remarkable things about DSA, it is an inherently friendly cohort of people open to learning and hearing others tell their stories and share their experiences. Once you get your bearings, there is an immense sense of joy in coming together to debate and solve problems, facilitate events and organize community members around issues you care about. 

In public meeting rooms, on zoom calls, and in streets all over our country, there are volunteers giving their time, passion, energy and expertise to building a mass movement to make their communities stronger, more equitable, more diverse and more healthy, and that is an unbelievably inspiring thing to witness and be a part of.

In an era of violently divisive politics, Zohran is showing that there is not only space for positive messaging, but this approach to leftist politics resonates with a diverse coalition of voters. Mamdani’s campaign, bolstered by the work of New York City’s DSA chapter, was a flawlessly executed campaign that not only educated people about his policies, but about the wider socialist theory that informed them.

This week I’ve been inundated by messages from politically disengaged and dismayed friends all expressing an unfamiliar feeling; hope. Their disbelief that Mamdani could win even in the face of corporate PAC’s and lobbyists lining up behind Cuomo, and even in the face of mass media working against him. 

Democratic Socialists of America members all over the country this week are rejoicing as this win gives more proof to our theory of change; when we activate our organizational muscle and bring our message to the people in our communities, we can win elections and we can help to bring about the change we want to see.

Let this victory be a launching pad for a million more activists who are seeing, likely for the first time in their lives, a truly generational moment for socialist politics in the United States. Join us, let’s continue to build this movement. 

On the evening of June 24th, Zohran Mamdani’s campaign shocked the world, in a surprise first round victory that caused the establishment favorite, Andrew Cuomo, to concede the race. As Zohran Mamdani took the microphone, nearly an hour after Cuomo’s concession, he spoke of his monumental walk across Manhattan, describing the workers he saw across the island still hard at work running the city that never sleeps. One of the most profoundly working class speeches the US has ever seen a political candidate given. In this late evening hour, Zohran’s victory seemed to have always been an inevitable certainty.

But in October 2024, when the debate on running Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York City was discussed at the New York City DSA’s convention, there were many questions about whether DSA was prepared for this campaign. Zohran Mamdani, a DSA organizer who had already been elected to the New York State Assembly in 2020, was an ideal, cadre candidate to represent the organization, but the sheer size of the effort was unlike anything a DSA chapter, even a behemoth like NYC, had taken on before. And there were deep concerns about the ability to convey an unfiltered socialist, working class message in a race as widely scrutinized as that as for the mayor of New York City.

Now we see that New York City DSA has shocked the world. Zohran’s victory in the NYC mayoral primary is the hugest electoral victory the socialist left has ever achieved in US politics, and in the end, it wasn’t even close. Despite all polling to the contrary, Zohran resoundingly crushed Cuomo in the first round of ranked choice voting, leading to a near immediate concession by the up-to-then assumed victor of the election.

How did such a seemingly impossible moment instead become an incredible victory? There are multiple elements to this. Zohran Mamdani is a generational talent, with a seemingly unshakeable charisma and ability to stay on message and inspire hope in his audience. And Cuomo’s reputation did him no favors-the more voters learned about each candidate, the further Zohran’s odds rose and Cuomo’s fell.

But the real source of this victory is the organizational weight behind Zohran Mamdani as a candidate. Over 60,000 volunteers knocked over 1.6 million doors in possibly the hugest field operation NYC has ever seen. The campaign maxed out potential fundraising early due to an unprecedented amount of committed small donors throughout NYC, enthusiastic about Zohran’s campaign. And the campaign’s Democratic Socialist politics, one that stubbornly insisted on the importance of reducing costs of living and making NYC a city for everyone, successfully captured both the media spotlight and importance among voters by sheer insistence.

Behind all these remarkable successes stands the crucial point, the thing that decided this race years before it even happened: Zohran Mamdani was a committed member of Democratic Socialists of America, an organization committed to developing the power of every day working class people to change politics in this country, and an organization that decided months before that this fight was one we could win. With this victory, there is no doubt that Democratic Socialists of America has become a historic force in US politics, one based in a kind of politics that has largely disappeared from the United States: democratic, grassroots organizations driven by regular working class people.

Steering the Ship

Seeing this huge success in New York City, what is there for us to learn in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky? While there are a number of contextual differences between ourselves and New York City, there are some core things anyone who wants a socialist left to succeed everywhere should take away.

Firstly, what Zohran successfully did was offer a politics based in hope and sincerity for the future of New Yorkers. While the fascist right has embraced cynicism as an organizing tool to encourage the US public to abandon the marginalized and oppressed, cynicism has also broadly infected politics in our society, to insist that winning better things, even if it’s what we want, is strictly impossible. Zohran’s campaign refused to cede an inch to this, insisting instead that New Yorkers “deserve to be free and fed”, that we can have everything that we deserve to lead a good life. This politics of sincerity and optimism must be the politics of Democratic Socialists of America.

Secondly, it has been common with the ebb and flow of DSA in the wake of the Bernie 2016 and 2020 campaigns to view political and historic events as something that simply occur to DSA, that we have to simply ride the waves and resist the regressions as well as we can. But Zohran’s campaign was a homegrown DSA campaign, intentionally chosen by NYC DSA to intervene in the political moment, and it is irrevocably changed the direction of politics both in New York City and across the country. While we certainly cannot control every political event that comes our way, we have the power to make our own mark on history, and we should take the opportunity to do so when we have it.

Finally, it is crucial to understand from this that power resides where we can bring people together. The powers that be rely on an increasingly common sense of powerlessness derived from us experiencing world events alone via computer and phone screens and a 24/7 stream of deeply evil events. But when we are able to come together as an organization, we transform from the framework of an individual victim of history, to a collective actor. To borrow from an excellent article on Zohran’s election:

In 2017, a DSA organizer and philosopher named Michael Kinnucan said: “US civic culture is so hollowed out at the grassroots level that in any city in the US if your organization can get 40 to 50 committed people in a room occasionally you’re probably operating one of the five or six most potentially powerful grassroots organizations in your city.

This idea was foundational to DSA, especially in New York City, and shaped Mamdani. For many, it seemed a fantasy. Five hundred thousand votes later, across nearly every language and nationality in the world, it’s a warning. To defeat the right, the left must learn from Mamdani and the DSA and rebuild mass working-class organization.”

Now is the time, in the wake of Zohran’s victory, to carve our path to power as DSA Cincinnati. While there are many differences between Cincinnati and New York City, so many of the crises Zohran plans to fight-affordability, housing, the lack of a real opposition to the Trump admin’s evil policies on immigrants, trans people and more-are crises we recognize right here in Cincinnati. It is time for us join the fight to make DSA a mass organization for millions of people, one that will take up the mantle to defeat the far right, and make Democratic Socialists of America the future of US politics.

DSA Cincinnati has already proven what it can do even with a fledgling canvassing operation. In a mere two months in 2024, DSA Cincy knocked nearly 10,000 doors to oppose Amendment 2, a Kentucky ballot measure that would have provided public school funding to private schools (the ballot measure was soundly defeated thanks to the work of unions and working class people, including DSA, across the state). Now, DSA Cincy looks to the future of Cincinnati and what can be accomplished. Democratic Socialists can take real power in Cincinnati, the same as we have in New York City. DSA has a vision of the future that meets the needs of the working class

It’s always been up to the working class to make a better future. Now it’s clear: DSA can win it. Join the fight and make it happen.

By: Jade DeSloover

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Rabbit Hole: v.001 was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By: Rob Switzer

On a cool Sunday evening this past June, I did a shift canvassing a neighborhood on the west side of Detroit, knocking on doors for a candidate for the City Council’s Seventh District: Denzel McCampbell.

After navigating through a traffic jam in the parking lot, I located our meeting place in Rouge Park. One thing I noticed immediately was how many friendly faces I saw. Of the roughly two dozen volunteers I saw that day, at least half seemed to be fellow members of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). In talks before my shift, I learned that DSA members had already helped knock on 5,000 doors for this campaign. (That number now exceeds 7,000.)

One of them was Lila Brickner. She has only been a DSA member for about six months, but she has thrown herself into this campaign. Despite working full-time, she spends about four days a week on what has essentially become her second job. She has knocked on well over 500 doors; she also does phone-banking, helps at events, and supplies other support as needed.

“I was drawn to this because it gave me a chance to start taking immediate action,” Brickner told me. “Having socialists in office is critical to driving change and getting the policies we want implemented. I was behind all of Denzel’s initiatives and really respected his background in community organizing. It’s obvious he genuinely cares about his city and his district.”

Also present was Aaron Bager, chair of our local DSA’s Electoral Committee. When asked why he’s so passionate about electoral work and this campaign, he said, “To me this is where the big changes happen. Absolutely unions change things. Tenant organizing changes things and I wouldn’t dismiss that. But a lot of widespread changes you want start here, with the city.”

Denzel has deep roots in this city. He is a lifelong Detroiter. He has been an activist since his college days at Michigan State University. He is a founding member of Black Youth Project 100, an organization that fights against the “school-to-prison pipeline” that undermines the futures of young people of color. Denzel was also an elected Detroit City Charter Commissioner, and served as communications director and advisor for U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib.

DSA has already backed him in the past, in his run for Detroit City Clerk in 2021. This time DSA members are pouring a lot of resources and time into his campaign, in the Electoral Committee and beyond. Denzel is a self-identified and unapologetic socialist, and a lot of us are looking at the current political climate as an opportunity to elect such candidates, a climate which is reflected in our growing membership in the last year.

Americans are crying out for representation that openly addresses their economic anxiety instead of gaslighting them that everything is just great, as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did in 2024. Voters want something different. And many of them are open to listening to someone willing to say, for example, that billionaires shouldn’t exist, and that immigrants are a vital part of our community who should not be rounded up like dogs. Denzel is one of these candidates.

And where are people most open to a more progressive — or even radical — message? In the great American cities. This is being demonstrated right now by the underdog campaign of DSA member Zohran Mamdani, candidate for Mayor of New York City, who just shocked the nation by winning a tight primary race against the billionaire-funded Democratic establishment candidate, Andrew Cuomo.

Aaron Bager agrees. “To me, Denzel is just the beginning. When we win — when, not if — I do want to basically get a bloc on the city council. I do want to run somebody like Zohran,” he said. “But you don’t just jump to that. You build to that … What’s going on over there in NYC, they built that over … I want to say over the past decade. So it all starts here in my eyes.”

As they say, “all politics is local.” And particularly in local elections, voters want someone who will address the needs of their community. And Denzel’s campaign is focused on this. The campaign has even been telling volunteers to focus less on selling the candidacy, and more on just asking people what they need. And Denzel is listening.

“When I think about being a socialist” — quoting McCampbell at a recent fundraising event — “I think about being someone who is running a campaign that is saying, we’re done with giving money for them to build playgrounds downtown while folks in our neighborhoods don’t have funds to repair their homes.”

Just before a recent fundraising event, I witnessed Denzel get stopped in the parking lot by a woman who told the story of her son’s bike being stolen by another boy in the neighborhood. She confronted the other boy’s mother, who told her, “I can’t get help from anybody, and I just want something for my son to do. He has nothing to do.” She was essentially telling the story of how her son resorted to crime because he has no diversions in his largely neglected and forgotten neighborhood.

Denzel recounted this story when he spoke that evening, stating, “Our government system is failing our kids in this district and across the city. We are done catering to billionaires. We’ve been told folks should be happy for scraps, while folks get everything they need downtown. That’s over.”

He continued: “This campaign is about lifting up the demands of workers. Being true to Detroit being a union town. A city government that makes sure we put workers first. A city government that says that we’re not going to continue to fund overpolicing, the surveillance and the militarization in our communities. A city that pushes back on folks in our city being snatched away, and folks being disappeared when it comes to immigration. A city government that actually works hand-in-hand with community with co-governance.”

Denzel is endorsed by many organizations, including local chapters of AFL-CIO, UAW, AFSCME, IBEW (Electrical Workers), and many others. And he is supported by us. With our collective work, he can and will win. And this election could be a model upon which we can build.

Primary voting is fast approaching: Election Day is August 5 and ballots for early voting are in the mail as of this writing. Now is the time to get involved. You can knock on doors like I did; you can phone-bank; you can donate. Let’s do this; let’s follow New York’s example and put our comrade on the City Council!

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Denzel McCampbell for Detroit City Council: An Opportunity for the Local Movement was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By: Taina Santiago

Back in April, Metro Detroit DSA members congregated inside UFO Bar in Corktown with the tunes of problematicblackhottie, internet boy, and Tom McBride beating on the walls of the dive bar. In May, comrades headbanged to the rock songs of the band Prostitute in a mosh pit that formed near the stage. In this small space, we came together to chat, laugh, and best of all, dance.

These Dances Against Fascism are put on by our fundraising committee, with the next event happening at 9PM on June 27 at Northern Lights Lounge (you can buy tickets here: https://ra.co/events/2197928).

Dance as a tool may not come to mind when folks think of fighting against an oppressive force, but it’s an essential part of many resistance movements like the one DSA is building. Throughout history, marginalized people have used dance to maintain hope, organize their communities, and express their humanity. MDDSA’s recent dances have followed in this spirit: members come together and dance unapologetically.

Dancing with a crowd of people who shared my anti-fascist, anti-capitalist views left me feeling hopeful that those in power cannot break us. A resistance movement needs to keep that feeling alive in the face of daunting oppression.

Ghost Dance

One such movement was called the Ghost Dance Movement, a popular spiritual dance used by Native Americans during the 1800s. It came about through a prophecy from a Northern Paiute religious leader named Wovoka, who told of the ghosts of ancestors returning and an end to the white settlers’ occupation of Indigenous land. Wovoka preached that a ritualized dance would help this future come to fruition sooner. It consisted of a ceremony where offerings were made to ancestors before followers sang and danced in an energetic circle. Some people entered trances during ceremonies, seeing visions of their ancestors as they danced with their present-day relatives.

The dance acted as a rebellion against the forced assimilation imposed on Native Americans by white settlers, which was erasing their way of life. It reconnected them to their roots, giving them the power to dream of what could be again.

The hope that the dance inspired in Indigenous people provided communities with strength and, in response, the colonizers stamped it out with military force. The Ghost Dance Movement was at the center of the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, where the Lakota chief Sitting Bull allowed people to participate in ghost dancing and was ultimately killed by the U.S. Army for it, along with 250 other Lakota men, women, children, and elderly people.

Ghost dancing gave Native Americans a ritual to put their hope into, a sacred ceremony they could do in harmony with their communities and in resistance to genocidal policies and practices.

Building Community

A lot of my enjoyment of our DSA dances came from mingling with fellow socialists and getting to know why they joined the organization. I felt an instant camaraderie with everyone. This was a community I wanted to be a part of and fight with. A movement like DSA is trying to build–one of solidarity with the most vulnerable members of our world and action-driven organizing–needs intentional community building. And few things build community like dancing together.

In Puerto Rico, the batey — a word from the Taíno natives meaning community space–was where this mingling and dancing took place. It was here that bomba–a previously banned dance that involves skirted dancers and drummers who modify their beats based on dancers’ improvised moves–developed. It was brought to the island by enslaved Africans who used it as an escape from the grueling labor on plantations and as a connective force between enslaved people who spoke different languages. This form of dance has been used for centuries to bring Puerto Ricans together to defy and organize against colonizers.

Presently, people in the neighborhood of La Perla in San Juan gather every Friday to dance bomba in the batey, bringing new generations into the enduring tradition. The free-flowing movements of the dancers along with the conversation they have with the drummer are a beautiful symbol of people in sync with each other. When we are in sync, we can more easily rise up in larger, more united numbers.

The Body’s Humanity

For three hours at the first Dance Against Fascism I moved my limbs and swayed to the beat, connecting to my body and therefore my humanity. Celebrating that humanity through dance keeps what we are struggling for at the forefront of our minds, making it more likely that we will keep fighting.

Dancing also pushes against the dehumanization tactics fascists use on marginalized people. The Stonewall Riots of 1969 marked another point where dance was at the center of a resistance movement. This critical moment in the LGBTQ+ liberation movement began at a gay bar called The Stonewall Inn in New York, where folks could express themselves and dance with each other in a time when they could not live openly in peace. An artist who participated in the riots, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, said in this Vice article, “It was the only bar where we could slow dance…That was totally revolutionary. Being able to dance with someone of the same sex changed everything in the way you felt about yourself. Because you were having an affectionate moment, you felt totally humanized.”

When the bar was raided by police, it marked a breaking point for a community that was under constant persecution. Clashes with police and a demonstration in the streets of Greenwich Village followed and lasted for six days. It was a show of strength, solidarity, and a reclamation of the humanity that police had tried to strip away. The riots and the Rockette-style kick lines that formed during them kicked off the modern gay liberation movement and demonstrated how places of dance and the freedom they represent can be environments that inspire people to fight for their right to exist.

History demonstrates how dance gives people a sense of agency to rise up against oppressors. Events like MDDSA’s Dance Against Fascism follow in this tradition and help us keep our inner light alive through dark times. Fascists want antagonism between people. Dance brings folks together. Fascists want to demonize individuality in the name of nationalism. Dance celebrates unique creative expression. Fascists don’t want us to dance, and that is exactly why we will continue to do so.

Join MDDSA’s next dance at 9PM on Friday June 27 at Northern Lights Lounge. Tickets are $10.

RSVP using this link: https://ra.co/events/2197928

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Dance Against Fascism: A History of Rhythmic Resistance was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Democratic Socialist Willie Burnley, Jr. carries the torch in bid for Somerville Mayor

“I’m going to be a pro-union, pro-worker mayor”

By Maxine Bouvier

SOMERVILLE, MA – With the backing of DSA, Somerville City Councilor-at-Large and democratic socialist Willie Burnley Jr. is challenging two-term incumbent Mayor Katjana Ballantyne.

Burnley’s campaign comes as Zohran Mamdani’s upset in the New York City mayoral race stunned the world. Mamdani made international headlines on June 24th by defeating a powerful ex-Governor born into a political dynasty and backed by the entire Democratic Party establishment.

Hope is not naive when you have a vision and a movement behind it. Hope is in fact righteous.

This is the dawn of a new era in New York City. And we will win it together. pic.twitter.com/Hj2buYNN8Z

— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) June 25, 2025

Mamdani and Burnley are DSA-endorsed members of their local chapters, and their political styles are similar. They are both self-described organizers. Both have employed creative campaign techniques and developed robust field operations on a scale that addresses the needs of two very different cities, while tackling broadly felt working-class issues. For Zohran, it was freezing the rent, making buses fast and free, and universal childcare. For Burnley, it’s affordable social housing, uplifting union rights and tenants’ rights, and increasing resources for K-12 students. The campaign has hosted creative events like a cannabis-infused fundraiser, and its volunteers are already knocking on doors five days a week.

Working Mass spoke with Willie over video call to ask him about his background, his historic campaign, his work on Somerville City Council so far, and – of course – his views on what is most important for Somerville’s future.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

WM: In 2021, the Boston Globe published a story about the victory of the Democratic Socialist slate in Somerville that year, the moment you became a city councilor. At the time, prominent local labor activist Rand Wilson quipped that “the socialist takeover of Somerville is going to be a little disappointing if nobody runs for mayor.” When did you first start thinking about running for Mayor?

WB: It’s hard to pin it exactly to one moment because as a city councilor, I have a front row seat to the city’s budget, to initiatives that are started and don’t get off the ground, and to the ways in which I think our current administration has mishandled a lot of the demands of the community. I’m thinking particularly about the transformation of public safety, as one.

Five years ago before I was a councilor, I pushed to re-allocate local police funds into public services that address community safety and wellness at the root – rental assistance, food assistance, bilingual youth specialist for public school – and five years later, our current mayor, is actually doubling down on the same broken system of policing that led us to take on that fight in the first place.

So, there’s been a lot of frustration over my time on the council. There have been many times when I’ve thought, If only we had someone who could take on this role and actually steer the city in the direction I know most residents want it to move.’ I feel that now is the time to have that person, and I believe I’m the best person for the job at this moment. 

Congrats to @ZohranKMamdani who ran an incredibly creative, people-powered campaign with @nycDSA. Let's make sure he wins the general and that there are other socialist mayors who win their races this year, especially in MAhttps://t.co/f6JQCuE3Ka https://t.co/vuqa2zWKPY

— Willie Burnley Jr (@WillieBurnleyJr) June 25, 2025

WM: Tell us about your background. What was growing up like for you?

WB: I grew up in Southern California, in San Diego specifically, in a lower middle-class family – a single-parent family, single-father family. I grew up in a place that’s a lot like Somerville, in some ways: a place where working-class people struggle to survive, with a lot of diversity.

In the case of my part of San Diego, most of the kids that I went to school with were people of color, most of whom were low-income, and, you know, where I grew up, we all had the sense that government was not on our side. The government was not there to protect us. I grew up with undocumented folks who felt like the government was going to tear apart their families. 

For folks like me, who the carceral system has impacted, we felt like the government was there to undermine us, to harm us. That informed a lot of my relationship with politics, frankly. We were underserved, underinvested in, and targeted by the government. And it’s precisely why I think we need to demonstrate that government can be a force for good in people’s lives by actually serving their material needs, helping them deal with the crises of medical debt and housing unaffordability.

I came to Boston for college. I moved to Somerville right after I graduated from college and have been here for about the last nine years. I see so much in this community that is built upon people caring about their neighbors and about the world they live in, and wanting to make it better. And I think we deserve leaders who will fight just as hard as our neighbors are fighting at this moment to secure our safety and our futures. 

WM: What led you to your politics?

WB: There are lots of things that are wrong in the world, lots of things that I feel like have been radicalizing me. Like a lot of people, it took me a bit of time to start identifying as a socialist. I didn’t grow up idolizing money, and I could see the fundamental flaws of capitalism, so my politics could be described as “anti-capitalist.” However, I recall reading an article in 2015 from Jacobin titled “Against Charity.” And it was about how our fundamental human rights, and things that we all need to live – food, water, shelter – will not be guaranteed by capitalism, and fundamentally cannot be guaranteed by capitalism. 

At the time, I was living in Washington, DC, on a program from Emerson College. DC was undergoing some of the most drastic and stark gentrification I’d ever seen. I lived within walking distance of the Capitol, where Congress was meeting, and where some of the most powerful industries in the world were centered to lobby our government. I saw many people who were unhoused, struggling to get by. There was so much poverty. And it was infuriating for me because – I’ve lived in cities all my life and I’ve seen poverty, so much of it, but to see it in our nation’s capital, where some of the richest people in the world were, and some of the wealthiest industries in the world were, was just – infuriating.

The article kind of just locked it all into place for me. I believe in human rights and in doing the things that you need to do to accomplish your values, and capitalism just fundamentally cannot sustain what I’m hoping to create in the world. That pushed me to become a socialist. It was a deep moment of radicalization for me amidst the Black Lives Matter movement. Getting involved with people-powered movements, in protest with thousands of people, really showed me how to view power: built from the ground up.

WM: What inspired you to organize? 

WB: The Black Lives Matter movement was the first time where I felt the true power of people-powered movements – 2014, 2015, 2016, 2020 – each of these years, being part of mass movements in the Boston area. In one of the first Black Lives Matter protests in Boston, we tried to shut down a highway with tens of thousands of people. I specifically say that because there was a call from some organizers at the time that white people should put their bodies on the line, go to the front, be that barrier between the police and people of color. I respected that, but I also wanted to be on that frontline. So, I put myself in that position. 

That was the moment when I realized: I want to be a part of this. There is a difference between supporting a protest and being a part of a movement, and organizing protests and organizing movements. So that was the start.

In 2017, I joined If Not Now, an almost entirely Jewish organization. I’m not Jewish, but I was a part of it. We organized people, primarily young American Jewish people, to call out the support of AIPAC. We protested outside the Boston consulate of Israel. I organized one of those protests because, at the time when Trump was first in office, they were trying to expel all Black immigrants from Israel back to Africa, where they would have been punished for going to Israel. The movement for people of color and for a just foreign policy really motivated me to not only join protests but also help lead the logistics and get people involved myself. 

WM: You have now served for four years as a city councilor in Somerville. How have the political dynamics of the Somerville City Council changed since your election in 2021? Do you think they become more or less favorable to socialist policy? 

WB: Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s a difficult question because I have been, I think, incredibly effective and productive with my time on the council. As far as legislation, I’ve passed thirteen laws in three and a half years on the council. Most other councilors have served in the same number of terms, perhaps two or one. There are not many people who have been around for the same amount of time as I have, because some of those people have already left. And most folks who’ve been around for twice as long have passed four, maybe five laws. So I feel confident in my ability to get things done. 

Some of my colleagues have been less inclined to support more aggressive action. When you can show that clear divide and demonstrate that socialists can be effective at legislating and governing, it sheds a negative light on those establishment elected officials who are not doing as much as they could for the people. It puts them in awkward positions. 

There are a lot of votes that my colleagues, frankly, have not wanted to take.

For example, when Somerville became the first municipality in Massachusetts to pass a ceasefire resolution in January of last year, many colleagues were hesitant to take that vote. They didn’t want to express an opinion or take a stance. Ultimately, we had that vote, and we were successful, but there was a lot of resentment from the elected political class in Somerville for having to take a stance on that issue. That’s frustrating from my standpoint, but it’s one of the kind of drawbacks, frankly, of having that successful insurgency, that all of a sudden the people who might have thought, “Oh, these people, they’re not going to be that effective, they’re harmless, we can just, you know, do whatever,” all of a sudden, when they really see it that you can be effective, they have to take stances to challenge your power.

That is essentially where we are now, and that’s why I think taking on a Mayor’s role in a strong mayor system like Somerville’s is so important. They’ll have a choice of whether to work with me or not, and then we can actually push for the material support that people need.

WM: You have spoken about being displaced from Somerville a decade ago. In what ways has the tenants’ crisis changed in Somerville since then? 

WB: I was displaced from Somerville in 2017, before the city had what we have now, which is the Office of Housing Stability. When I was displaced, I didn’t know who to talk to. And I know, frankly, because I talk to constituents who ask me these questions, a lot of people still don’t know who to talk to. But at the time, I didn’t feel, even as someone who was an organizer, like there was someone in our local government whom I could talk to about how to stay in my apartment when my landlord was drastically raising the rent. 

I felt incredibly isolated, unprotected, and, frankly, afraid of what it would mean to not be able to pay my bills, what it might look like to be evicted, what it might look like to have to end up on the street. Coming from California, if I were going to get kicked out, I didn’t necessarily have somewhere to go long-term in Somerville or the state of Massachusetts. Ultimately, I had to return to California after the landlord displaced me. I decided to come back because I care about this place that much. But, to your question, we now have an Office of Housing Stability, which is one of our most important and vital resources for residents. 

We now also have a fully formed Community Land Trust. It’s now slowly acquiring and proposing to build permanently affordable housing in different parts of the city. 

But, of course, we need to do more. That’s why one of the things I want to do as Mayor is do what former Mayor Curtatone did with the Office of Housing Stability: hire one person to help build out the department, figure out what we need to practically do as a city to stabilize people’s housing, when the city lacks the right or the power to establish rent control. If I’m elected mayor, I’m going to do the same thing with an Office of Social Housing – figure out what Somerville could do to try to build up social housing, by municipally owning housing in the city that’s set as deeply affordable for residents, and, long-term, producing social housing for residents in the city. 

WM: What do you think is the role of labor unions in municipal governance? How about tenants’ unions? How can you involve workers and tenants in Somerville governance?

WB: I’m a former union member. I was a Teamster. Unions play a crucial role, both in helping to clarify issues for elected officials and in advocating for broader solidarity from below. For example, in Somerville, Tufts is currently building a dorm with non-union labor. I’ve been on the picket lines multiple times with some members of SEIU and other trade union members, discussing with the workers why Tufts needs to use union labor to build. That’s important because it’s safer for the workers themselves and the people ultimately living in those buildings. Our labor unions also advocate for other issues. For example, the trades unions are very interested in how cities implement legislation to build resilience around climate change. 

We need to demonstrate to our workers, both municipal workers and those in the city, that the local government has their backs. Somerville needs to be a union town, and I don’t think we can achieve that if we have a mayor who will be hands-off or allow projects that will reshape the city without utilizing union labor.

We have some tenant unions in Somerville, but I think we should have many more. Tenants’ unions are vital for our community, especially in Somerville, which is incredibly dense. It’s the most densely populated municipality in New England, one of the most densely populated municipalities in the world. Knowing your neighbors is not just important for housing stability, but it’s also important for addressing all kinds of issues. When we have neighbors getting snatched off the street by ICE, the people who are best suited to support us are our neighbors, the people who live near us, the people who can keep track of what’s going on in and around our neighborhoods. Often, other tenants.

It’s important, obviously, to negotiate with landlords – that’s something that the Office of Housing Stability has been really helpful with. They’re able to work on getting whole buildings in a position to negotiate rent hikes with landlords collectively. We need more tenants’ unions, and we need them to be in communication with the city, so we can collectively advocate for our rights. People power is real, and it matters even to the slumlords. If they act in a disproportionate or unethical manner towards their tenants, they will have to empty entire buildings in the long term and face negative press about the buildings, which will lead to no tenants signing their leases at all.

WM: How do you plan to support Somerville city employees as Mayor?

WB: That’s a great question, and something I’ve already tried to do as a councilor. I’ll give two examples of things I have done and an example of something I would do. First, Massachusetts has a law called the Paid Family and Medical Leave Act, which offers up to twelve weeks of paid leave to workers when they take medical leave, or when they or someone in their family has a serious medical issue. That’s a law passed years ago that impacts workers across the state. However, one exempt group was municipal workers.

Municipalities can opt into the system and provide workers with twelve weeks of leave. The cities pay some of it, but not all of it. Not a single municipality in the state of Massachusetts has opted into the program. Not a single one. So, one of the things that I did as a councilor was I brought forward that law to Somerville and asked, “Hey, should we adopt this law that would drastically increase our benefits for our municipal workers?” 

Can we afford to do it? Do workers want it? [The Ballantyne administration] obfuscated; they delayed. They even said, “No, well, what we are doing now is better than that.” What they didn’t mention at the time was that they offered two weeks of paid leave for our municipal workers. They claimed that two weeks was better than twelve weeks. I kept pressing them on it for over a year and a half. Finally, they said: You know what? We’re actually creating a municipal version of it – eight weeks. We’re not going to do twelve weeks, but we’ll do eight weeks, which is four times what we were doing previously, which we already said was better than the twelve weeks. They won’t admit it, but the city council could have opted us into a much broader program, and chose not to. But they nonetheless responded to pressure. And now, today, in this part of the fiscal year, workers in Somerville have four times as much paid family medical leave as they did when I became a city councilor.

That’s one win my advocacy contributed to for municipal workers. Another is an ordinance, a year ago, maybe two years ago, to require that when a Somerville municipal worker experiences sexual or domestic violence, they receive paid leave. In the state of Massachusetts, all employers are required to give at least fifteen days of leave for someone who experiences sexual or domestic violence, but employers can choose whether that’s paid or unpaid. Survivors end up brutalized and then also often lose their income for the time that they need to find new housing. They’re losing wages they would otherwise be making. That is fundamentally unjust, to financially punish someone for being subject to violence. 

I brought forward that ordinance. Again, our administration obfuscated and delayed. RESPOND, which is one of the largest anti-violence, anti-domestic abuse, and anti-sexual violence organizations in Massachusetts, wrote a letter supporting the ordinance. However, the administration still isn’t trying to support legislation. As mayor, we will pass that law, and Somerville, as far as I’m aware, will become the first Massachusetts municipality to say by law that anyone who experiences this form of violence deserves paid leave, not just leave. A city in Kentucky passed the law, you know. Somerville should not be behind anywhere in Kentucky on these types of issues.

As mayor, I’ll also ensure that we’re not in a situation similar to the one we recently experienced, where our mayor kept our largest union out of contract for over two years while negotiating with them. During that time, we lost people: “Why would I work for a city that’s not even going to respect my union and give me a contract?” But we also lost people who would have applied to these jobs, but were like, “Why would I apply to a city or a workplace that’s going to treat its workers like this? Or treat its unions like this?” I respect unions enough to negotiate fairly and urgently with them. So, I’m going to be a pro-union, pro-worker mayor of the executive body.

WM: As a city councilor, you led efforts to use ARPA funds to pay off the medical debt of Somerville residents. How much medical debt is held by Somerville residents? What can you do to prioritize this issue as Mayor? 

WB: How much debt is owed is complicated. It’s also not a one-to-one relationship between the amount of debt and the amount we would have to pay, which is part of why I wanted to do this program. The way that buying debt works, at least medical debt in this country, is that you can essentially buy, for one dollar, $100 worth of debt. After a hospital holds a debt for so long, a couple of years, they eventually sell to collectors for pennies on the dollar: “Hey, this person owes $5,000, you give us $50, We’ll give you their portfolio debt, and then you can try to collect it from them.” 

No rule says a city can’t buy that debt and just forgive it. That’s what I was opting to do. We can’t with just direct municipal funds, under current laws, which is why I was pushing for ARPA funds. However, I still believe that there’s a way to build a stabilization fund to alleviate medical debt on a recurring cycle so that, every three years, Somerville residents’ medical debt is wiped away for pennies on the dollar. That’s something I’m very interested in pursuing as mayor. However, since ARPA funding is being phased out, we’ll need a different iteration. Unfortunately, our mayor refused to accept this offer when it was presented to her. 

WM: What’s your plan as Mayor for the troubled Winter Hill PK-8 school?

WB: At the Winter Hill School, in the summer of 2023, a piece of concrete from one of the ceilings fell. Thankfully, it happened while school was not in session, with no one in the building. But it was the result of decades of neglect and a lack of investment in our buildings, which the teachers’ union had warned about literally the year before, during budget season. But even though the union warned the building was falling apart, that it was unsafe and unsanitary, our mayor said, “Hey, we’re doing a buildings study, give us some time, give us a year or two. We’re going to have a plan for the buildings.” And in that time, the buildings fell apart. We had to relocate hundreds of students into existing schools and then effectively convert a building slated for city staff offices into a school for children aged five to thirteen. 

That’s the current status of the Winter Hill School. The actual building itself is unoccupied. Just a month ago, some individuals entered the building and set fires within it. Since it’s in a residential neighborhood of Somerville, that was incredibly dangerous. However, it happened because the city was not focused on keeping the building up to date and safe while it was open, nor on ensuring it was secure enough when it was unoccupied. As mayor, I’ll make sure the city moves urgently to build a new school for Winter Hill. We have to figure out where, a legitimate question because we’re, again, the most densely populated city in New England, but there are a few options on the table.

Another complicating factor: we have other schools that are likely to deteriorate in the near future. The question to answer right now is: will we rebuild the Winter Hill School with enough space for just Winter Hill? Or will we rebuild it with enough space for the children from Brown, another school in the city, currently inaccessible to anyone who has physical disabilities? Will we build a building big enough to accommodate both schools’ worth of children? And if we do, where will it go when we don’t have a massive amount of space in Somerville to begin with? 

I can promise that in my first year, we will make that decision and move with urgency to implement it. In contrast to the current mayor, who has not provided any definitive statement about our direction in two years, we will move quickly. 

Willie Burnley, Jr. has served Somerville as a city councilor-at-large endorsed by Boston DSA since his initial run for office in 2021.

Maxine Bouvier is a member of Boston DSA and a contributing writer to Working Mass.

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