T. Sinclair sat down with Bradley Davis, steering member of the Portland Tenants’ Union, which has recently helped win a case where it was ruled $34,000 in illegal rent violations must be paid back to tenants.

TS: Thanks for making time for us today. To start, there’s been some confusion in the local media as to how the Portland Tenants Union (PTU) was established. Some people have said it comes from former Mayor Ethan Strimling’s efforts with the Trelawny Tenants Union. Others have said that you were the founder. And so can you clarify it, how did the PTU get started?

That’s a good question. PTU started last year following my own personal landlord retaliation experience. There were a lot of things that we learned about how the city handles tenant complaints and who has the authority to allege a complaint for somebody else. And something that we were told by the city multiple times is that an individual cannot allege a violation for another individual. So, hypothetically, if I’m living in a building and the building is unregistered and I’m being charged illegal rent and I have all the proof for it and I go to the city and complain about it, I cannot loop in my upstairs neighbor on that complaint.

They would require that person to stick their neck out and go against their landlord and put themselves at risk to even look into the situation. It’s a very anti-tenant perspective. So, we needed to create an organization that can have the legal standing to represent an entire group, we needed to create a citywide tenants union. At the time, I was working with the Portland Local Campaign Committee, an arm of Maine DSA, and all of these issues with tenants’ rights, rent control, and enforcement from the city were stuff that we were all really passionate about. And so we decided to grow it.

TS: Now that it’s established, how does the union operate internally?

We want there to be elected representatives of tenants. We want decision making to be shared with everybody who is a member. In order to make that happen, we currently have a steering committee. I would say there’s roughly a dozen people that have been administering meetings, a large email list, and social media posts reaching over ten thousand. We’re just trying to grow our membership and let people know that the organization exists and that there are people who are fighting for their rights.

Right now, we have three areas of focus for the tenants union. We have a “complaints & research” group, which has been fielding communications that we get from tenants. An “events and membership” group, which is focusing on growing our membership engagement. And finally, a “communications and education” group. This handles a lot of our social media and extends education about tenants rights in Portland.

Our recent win in getting landlords to pay back $34,000 to tenants in rent violations has really helped showcase what we can do when we come together, and right now we’re just hoping to get more people involved.

TS: City Councilor Wes Pelletier recently lamented that it’s been too incumbent upon tenants to challenge rental offenses, and he wants the city to be more proactive. Why do you think a tenants’ union is necessary right now, and in what ways has the City of Portland not been proactive?

The Portland Tenants Union needs to exist right now because there’s been a severe lack of enforcement of rent control and rental registration from the City of Portland in the past five years that rent control has existed. They only hired a dedicated rent control inspector, I believe, in December 2023, which was years after rent control was actually in place. Up until that point, it was 100% on tenants to have to bring forward any sort of rent control violation, and they were sticking their necks out without a union.

Before then, it is very clear that the city was not actively verifying any data points from landlord registration forms. Not only that, they weren’t even doing the math on the forms to see if rent increases were legal. We’ve seen cases where the numbers in the city’s own data are illegal, but the city doesn’t catch it, because they’re waiting on tenants to call them out for it. So, finally this past year, they have started to audit buildings and look at data proactively. I believe they said as of late they’ve gotten through 18% of units, which is far too low for the fact that we are potentially sitting on four plus years of unverified data.

The tenants union needs to hold the city accountable to enforce the laws that its citizens passed. Whether landlords like it or not, rent control passed, was expanded, and was defended in three separate elections, and it is here to stay, it is the will of the people of Portland. We get the sense that the City is not very happy with the rent control laws, that they think they’re too ambiguous, and it seems like they really don’t want to have to go to court to fine a landlord for breaking rent control laws. But at the end of the day that is the city’s obligation, to enforce the laws that its people have put into place. And so our job and our role as we see it is to push the City to be more proactive in their enforcement of rent control.

TS: What are some more serious issues or loopholes you have seen landlords try to exploit? For context: you folks just won $34,000 in back-owed rent for tenants on St. George Street because the landlords were charging illegal fees.

So, additional fees on top of rent are something that we have seen historically over the past few years. And the city has set the record straight on the legality of those fees, but still landlords think they can charge them to get around rent control. They’ll say, “Okay, fine. Your rent is going up the allowable amount, but your parking fee just got raised $300 or now your pet fee is $400 a month.” To some extent there isn’t a lot of clear language on some of those fees.

Pet fees in particular are one thing that we are very interested in. And, we have people reaching out to us even this past week saying that their building just got bought by new owners who are saying to get the units up to market rate they’re gonna be increasing the fees for storage and the driveway and pet fees. And if you opt out of the driveway and storage, then they’re just gonna hike the pet fee anyway, to get to market rates. So it is clear what they’re trying to do.

They are trying to get more profit from their tenants than is allowable by rent control, but at that point it’s on the city to bring down the hammer and say, no, you can’t take advantage of tenants like that.

There’s also hundreds of units in the city with $0 registered rents. Another loophole that we see a lot is the claiming of owner occupied status in order to get exempt from rent control. For example, some will claim a building is owner occupied if a family member lives in the building, which is not considered legally owner-occupied, it has to actually be the owner’s primary residence.

TS: Since the tenant movement has taken off in Portland, we’ve seen tenant movements start to pick up in other places. For example, in Brunswick there’s the Brunswick Renters Organization (BRO), and just recently in Saco there’s been a group starting to organize tenants. For these new burgeoning movements, what advice would you give?

Yeah. I mean, to be fair, I don’t know how qualified we are to give advice since I know BRO is technically older than we are. What I will say in terms of tenant organizing as someone who is not experienced in organizing prior to being thrust into it, unwillingly, I think that it’s important to get people on board with fighting back against the isolation and individualism that living in this capitalist housing system has forced upon us.

The system is designed to keep landlords in charge, to keep tenants alone and having to fight for themselves and thinking that they are in the minority and have no power. And what we and other tenant organizers historically have realized is once we get together and say, “hey, we live here, we are this community, we want our needs to be met,” there is power in that and there is democracy to be had in that. And the more people that you can get on board and the larger coalition you can build, the more power that you get.

Other cities across the country have shown that they are more willing to fight for tenants than the City of Portland. There was a story out of Las Vegas, someone was operating an unregistered AirBnB for multiple years, got multiple violations, and the city council went to court to try and fine him almost a hundred thousand dollars. And because of how the court proceedings went, that fine went through. That is the city council of Las Vegas that went to bat for tenants across the city and put a hundred thousand dollar fine on just one guy operating an unregistered unit. 

There’s also talk in New York City right now of utilizing their structures in place to repossess buildings that are not up to code and put them in the hands of the city and tenants. They are willing to go to bat against landlords that are violating the law, And I would love to see Portland, Maine fight for its community members in even half of that capacity.

TS: Thank you for your time, Bradley, feel free to say whatever you want here to wrap it up and let folks know where to find you.

Folks can follow us on Instagram, @portlandtenantsunion. Come join us for a meeting. We have general meetings on the first Wednesday of every month. People can go to our website, portlandtenantsunion.org, to learn more about their rights as well as sign up to become members of the union. And we are just trying to bring as many people in as we can, to fight for everything that we’ve been talking about.

I think to close it off, and I don’t know if this is gonna be a very good closing statement, but another thing that I’ve been thinking about after reading Abolish Rent, I think that the only path forward for true tenant emancipation is to decouple profitability from housing ownership. For as long as it is profitable to just own a building, tenants will always lose. The only way that tenants win is if housing returns to what it was initially meant to be, a place to live for you and your family to live in community. And as long as the profit motive exists for owning a building, tenants will lose at the end of the day. And we’ve talked about plenty of ways to fight back against that, whether that’s in enforcing rent control, whether that is looking into social housing, which the City of Portland is now starting to do, finding ways to return housing to just a place where people live and not an infinite money glitch because you got lucky in being born with the wealth that you have. That is the end goal.

The post Sitting Down with Portland’s Tenant Union appeared first on Pine & Roses.

by Rob Switzer

Over 10,000 grocery workers from 77 stores struck King Soopers in Colorado last month*; it’s a division of stores owned by Kroger. Like me, they are members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).

A rank-and-file reform caucus called Essential Workers for Democracy (EW4D), which is working to make UFCW more democratic, was in Denver walking the picket lines and delivering daily bulletins to keep workers up-to-date. They flew in several UFCW members from different locals around the country to support their fellow grocery workers. This is how I became one of them!

The story starts with the election in November. Like many people who identify with the Left, I was very deeply invested in seeing Donald Trump lose. Despite how terrible Biden and Harris were on some of the issues — and their membership in a party that props up the system that I believe to be the root of most of our problems — I preferred their victory over a fascist-friendly administration bent on vengeance. So I held my nose and voted for Harris, and advocated that others should as well.

When the unthinkable happened and Trump won, I watched many of my liberal and progressive friends erupt in anger at Trump voters, with disgust for what their country had become. I can sympathize with that to a degree, but my reaction was more one of shame. And anger, yes, but not so much toward Trump voters, but more toward the Democratic establishment. They were running to the right on every issue in order to win. To see them do that and still lose was beyond maddening.

I was fed up. On social media I saw something about a general meeting of “Democratic Socialists of America” just a few days after the election. I immediately identified with their goals and values. I resolved to make it to the next one, and I did. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing: A room of over 100 people not afraid to proudly represent their values and call themselves socialists. And they seemed happy to be there, rather than despondent. I got the sense that it didn’t matter who had just won the election: they’d still be fighting the same fight regardless. There was just a little more work to do now.

I am a union member, and I got involved in the Labor Working Group. I have attended every meeting since. I’ve met many great people, and I’ve been involved in actions supporting striking Starbucks workers, graduate workers, and others. After hearing stories of organizing and activism from others, I started to think about how I could change my own workplace.

I work as a butcher in a UFCW shop. I am very proud to be a union worker and I’m known at work as being very politically conscious and pro-union. Many people at my workplace are critical of the union, and for valid reasons. Yet I sometimes find myself defending the union, or at least the workplace benefits that it has clearly brought us. I have a fair amount of seniority there and am generally respected.

So some time last March, after we lost our shop steward, I was encouraged by several people to sign up for consideration as the next one. Nobody signed up to challenge me. Months passed and I heard nothing from our union officials. On this issue and on our union representation in general, most of my coworkers felt lost and confused. And I did too. I didn’t feel empowered to do anything.

But several months down the line, now a DSA member, I started to think about what I could do to change the situation. I started talking to coworkers. I read the Labor Notes book Secrets of a Successful Organizer. I attended a Labor Notes workshop called “What to Do When Your Union Breaks Your Heart.” I even surveyed my coworkers about whether they supported me becoming steward, and circulated a petition which almost all of them signed without hesitation.

I found my way to getting in touch with Essential Workers for Democracy. I held several Zoom calls with EW4D, and they helped me consider ways to deal with the steward issue and others. I met other disaffected pro-union UFCW workers. Eventually I was invited onto a Zoom call with EW4D leader Steve Williamson. He wanted to hear my story. And afterwards he told me that they were all holed up in Denver, supporting the UFCW workers out there who were on strike. He asked if I wanted to come out.

I did. I arrived on a Monday morning and met with Steve. In the snowy, foggy, below-freezing weather, we drove from picket line to picket line. He would introduce himself, hand out that day’s issue of their bulletin, and just talk to the strikers. He would introduce me. They were always thrilled to hear that a union brother had come all the way from Detroit to support them. We would walk the lines with them, chant with them. Share stories with them.

I learned about the conditions the workers endured over those two weeks on strike: not just the weather but manipulative tactics by Kroger. For example, Kroger unsuccessfully sued to essentially shut down the strike, challenging who strikers could talk to and what they could do, and insisting that they not be allowed to use heaters or heat lamps on the lines. Just the day before I arrived, Kroger had reportedly agreed to the local’s demands, but ultimately reneging on the deal and instead circulating misleading statements blaming the union. I learned firsthand that most of the workers were not buying it. And although many were tired, the overwhelming majority seemed to support fighting on if need be. Their resilience was simply inspiring.

After a full day of visiting the lines, I was brought to the house I would be sharing with other activists. Three of them were members of DSA from around the country, and even knew some of my local comrades! We had lively discussions. I was supposed to stay for several days. But the following morning, we received word that a “Return-to-Work Agreement” had been finally reached, and that the strike was ending immediately.

That day we held a debriefing conference, in which everyone was encouraged to speak. I told them that although it was unfortunate that I came so late, it definitely wasn’t a waste of time for me. I explained that I honestly feel that with every minute I participate in activism — whether it be direct action or even just discussions — I learn something new. And this was a unique and exceptional experience in which I learned an incredible amount in a short time. And I would take those lessons and those skills with me and they could potentially change lives.

I carry those lessons today in my on-going campaign to become shop steward and to otherwise organize my coworkers. I have already seen some of them become more outspoken and encouraged. I will carry those lessons into the labor work I am involved in right now, and even beyond it. I’m even helping with the current campaign to bring rail transit to Corktown in Detroit, which could have a direct impact on my neighborhood.

Activism has become a driving purpose of my life, rather than a side hobby. None of this — my Denver trip and otherwise — would have happened without DSA, and I thank every member of that organization and every activist, everywhere, for leading by example and reminding people like me of the power that we each hold. Solidarity forever!

*Note: this article was written in March 2025.

How I Found Myself on a Picket Line in Denver after 2 Months in DSA was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An effort by the majority group to dissolve the reform caucus highlights on-going internal tensions over the direction of the caucus

By Henry De Groot

Tensions within the Unite All Workers For Democracy (UAWD) reform caucus within the United Autoworkers Union have boiled over as the majority group on the caucus’s Steering Committee (henceforth, majority group) issued a statement calling for members to vote to dissolve the caucus.

The statement from the majority group asserts that internal divisions within the caucus have hardened, blocking productive work from continuing. The majority group statement also seemed to question the validity of a caucus which is largely composed of non-autoworkers within UAW Region 9A (covering the Northeast), in a union largely composed of midwestern blue-collar manufacturing workers.

We believe in the need for a reform caucus, but not in one that is constantly engaged in insular debate that distracts from the work of building the union.

The majority group statement concludes by announcing the launch of a new network within the UAW which is focused on “developing the future generation of shop-floor organizers and leaders in the UAW, helping members stand up to bosses and win strong contracts, and building stronger local unions, including by running for office.”

A counter-statement was released by the minority tendency on UAWD Steering Committee (minority group) criticizing the effort.

The minority group statement explores how, from their perspective, the effort to dissolve the caucus is the result of a slow drift away from the original principles of the caucus, and the alleged opportunism of certain UAWD leaders elected to the union’s International Executive Board (IEB). In contrast to this alleged opportunism, the minority group, instead, asserts a vision of what they call “class struggle.”

The statement from the minority group also asserts that the effort by the majority group to dissolve the caucus at the next meeting would violate the caucus’s by-laws and responds to the allegations of dysfunction that are raised in the majority group statement.

The minority group also punches back, questioning the relationship between the majority group and Teamsters For A Democratic Union and Labor Notes.

The UAWD caucus took power in the country’s sixth-largest union, covering almost one million auto-workers, higher education workers, and other manufacturing and white-collar workers, following the successful UAWD election effort which saw UAWD member Shawn Fain take the union’s top job.

Fain also faced criticism, especially from the Palestinian movement, for his endorsement of Kamala Harris, and more recently for his apparent approval of Trump’s tariffs. 

The division also seems to have split members of the DSA active within the caucus, with members currently or previously active in the Boston DSA Labor Working Group (which founded Working Mass), Worcester DSA, and other DSA chapters represented on both documents.

Henry De Groot is the Managing Editor of Working Mass.

Note: An earlier version of this article described workers embedded in higher education as “graduate students.” This has been corrected for accuracy in light of other workers within the field.

By Siobhan M.

CAMBRIDGE, MA — With the support of Cambridge Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members, residents of the Transition Wellness Center at Spaulding Hospital called on the Cambridge City Council at Monday’s meeting to save the city-funded 58-bed shelter they call home. As a lower-congregate facility with just a few residents per room, the TWC provides a vital escape for unhoused Cambridge residents from dire living conditions on the streets or in Cambridge’s overcrowded congregate shelters. While the City said in February that they would close the shelter in June, residents are fighting back and standing up for the importance of their shelter.

After more than a month of advocacy from DSA members, Vice Mayor Marc McGovern and Councillors Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler and Ayesha Wilson sponsored a policy order directing the City Manager to “explore options for continuing TWC funding.” Thanks to Cambridge’s anti-democratic governing structure, the unelected City Manager has significantly more sway over the budget than the elected Council. This policy order’s passage would not have funded the shelter, but it would have offered the TWC a potential lifeline. A vote on the policy order was delayed after Councillor Toner — consistently the most conservative member of the Council — exercised his charter right to halt debate and postpone a vote.

During the meeting’s public comment period, community support for the TWC was clear. Ayah Al-Zubi, a Cambridge DSA member, introduced residents of the shelter and called on the Council to “listen to them — to actually open your heart and hear their stories.”

Several shelter residents spoke to the difference between the TWC, a low-congregate shelter, and other shelters in the city. One Cambridge native said the shelter is “one of the few places… that actually treats people like people…this place provides healthcare, it provides a lot of social services. It helps us find jobs. This is not a place that should be shut down simply because you don’t think it’s worth the money, because it’s worth the people.”

A shelter resident who used to volunteer “on the other end” in soup kitchens before losing his own housing emphasized the lower-congregate nature of the TWC compared to other shelters. “You put too many people in a room, people fight, then they end up in jail.” He explained that many people without shelter avoid congregate shelters because of these issues and said that “you have four times the population” living on the streets compared to congregate shelters.

One 16-year Cambridge resident, who recently lost his job and stayed at other shelters before moving to the TWC, recalled horrifying conditions elsewhere: “There were too many people… you have to spend the night sitting in a chair, and you could get kicked out if you lie down.”

The TWC’s positioning in Spaulding Hospital makes it uniquely suited to meet the needs of residents. It first opened in 2020 as a response to COVID-19, using a previously vacant area of the hospital to open a less-crowded shelter that would be less likely than congregate shelters to facilitate COVID-19 transmission. An 18-year Cambridge resident who never experienced homelessness until recently spoke passionately about how the medical facilities at Spaulding were crucial for him:

I had a brain surgery and I can’t sleep without medication, and that place is very good for me. Please keep it open.

Several other DSA members also spoke in support of the TWC and its residents, including Dan Totten, who has worked closely with TWC residents in the fight to save the shelter. “I’ve started to understand what it means to live at Spaulding…having meals, having access to healthcare, having a guaranteed place to stay, having a place to put their stuff, having peace and quiet at night. So when the City Manager says it costs more money, that’s a reasonable point, but it’s not an apples to apples comparison with a congregate shelter because we’re providing more support and more services.”

Jim Stewart, who runs the First Church Shelter in Harvard Square, accused the city of not having a plan for TWC residents. “As a provider with 38 years of experience, there’s just no place for these people to go. It just beggars belief that we are supposed to accept as a community that this is all being done in some compassionate, humane manner, that these people will be well cared-for.”

Cassie Hurd, the Director of the Mutual Aid and Advocacy Program, is deeply connected with unhoused communities. She indicated she has not been part of any discussions about options for residents.

We have been unable to get information from the City Manager on whether or not the lease could be extended… if funds are truly the issue, and it is not a lack of will, I would offer eliminating the Cambridge Police Department’s Homeless Outreach Team. Police are not providers and surveilling, coercing, and intimidating people is counterproductive and costly.

Councillor Sobrinho-Wheeler, who was elected in 2023 with a DSA endorsement, echoed community sentiments about the “transformative impact” the TWC had on the lives of its residents as a “really critical support.” He stressed that the City had several options to continue funding and said TWC funding should be “a clear priority as we head into budget season and beyond.”

Even Denise Jillson, Executive Director of the Harvard Square Business Association and a longtime opponent of DSA, spoke in favor of continued TWC funding. “It is the most impressive shelter in the city of Cambridge, and I encourage every single one of you to take an opportunity to go there and visit,” she said.

City Manager Yi-An Huang, explaining his initial decision to close the TWC, cited budgetary concerns, saying it costs approximately $3 million per year. The shelter was originally funded by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) that distributed necessary funds to social services distributed at grassroots levels in 2021, but those funds will run out by June. City Manager Huang told the Council they “will provide greater context for the work that is happening around unhouse services and housing” at Cambridge’s Human Services & Veterans Committee meeting on Thursday, April 10. Meanwhile, TWC residents looked on and wondered if they’d lose their bed in the name of “greater context.”

The TWC helps keep dozens of community members safe and healthy, but the need for shelter beds in Cambridge still goes far beyond its capacity. As long as our capitalist system treats shelter as a reward for successful participation in the economy, and not as a basic human right available to all, the need for shelters like the TWC will continue to become increasingly dire.

The final speaker of the meeting’s public comment period spoke to the crux of the matter:

Any one of us could lose everything tomorrow… if you don’t help these people up, then you’re sentencing them to a life in hell.

Siobhan M. is a member of Boston DSA and UAW 2320. 

“What do politics have to do with me? I’m not an immigrant, or a black person, or a Muslim, or a Jew, or gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or a woman, or an old person, or a young person, […] or a student, or union member, or artist, or journalist, or scientist, or a public employee. I don’t breathe the air or drink the water; I don’t live in a coastal region that will be affected by sea level rise or an arid region that will be affected by drought or fire. I don’t like chocolate, wine, or coffee, or other commodities that will no longer be available due to climate change. I’m not mentally ill, pregnant, disabled or currently being shot at, so… what do politics have to do with me?”

– Nato Green, political comedian and labor organizer, “What do politics have to do with me?” from “The Whiteness Album”

Avoiding political conversations is an understandable self-preservation instinct for many. In organizing circles this impulse must be avoided to openly discuss meaningful pathways toward productive action. In an organizing body as new as Salt Lake DSA, these conversations are complicated by two main issues: 

• there is no comprehensive, baseline socialist vision with which all membership is guided by, and
• as such, there is no unified goal for SLDSA to move toward, allowing space for conversations to devolve from “us vs. the problem” to “me vs. you”.

Note that this specific devolvement is usually what makes people averse to these conversations in the first place. Our politics are how we see our personal values show up in the world, so any disagreement can feel like an attack on one’s moral compass. That conversation isn’t worth that risk. However, if we provide foundational political education for the chapter and actively connect our projects to the politics of Salt Lake, we can collectively move forward on a vision of SLDSA as a party-like organization. We can create a socialist Salt Lake City by helping members find confident humility in their political stances. 

The overall goal of the [Draft] Prioritization of a Politicized Salt Lake DSA resolution (what a mouthful) is to identify a distinct political vision for the Salt Lake DSA chapter. This would take place in two broad phases. The first step is to provide members a space to form and refine their own political ideals. This means facilitating discussions and identifying chapter-wide values. The second step is to tangibly work towards these ideals within Salt Lake City; this is where we learn how to act as a political body. 

If we are able to do this, SLDSA will be better at engaging members, affecting change in our locale, and bringing the socialist message to fruition. The political education we provide would be a source of confidence for those still understanding the wider systems we are up against; connecting the education to immediate issues in Salt Lake would exemplify these systems in action to newer members; in turn, our members (and those generally interested in socialism) can look to us as a way to visualise what socialism looks like in practice.

As a whole, DSA is looking to build towards becoming a recognized party in the United States. As the democratic party continues to fail workers, and people are becoming increasingly desperate for alternatives to the two-party system, it is crucial that our chapter carries its weight in becoming a credible alternative. After the 2024 election, Salt Lake DSA has become overwhelmed with new members. This means we now have the luxury of various perspectives; our new membership is composed of people with varying degrees of political knowledge and understanding of civics. But this is a double-edged sword. With such variation, we lack a political vision within the SLDSA chapter, complicating member engagement. Without a solidified platform that establishes a vision of DSA within Salt Lake, members are not likely to understand the importance and nuance of being an intentional political body. 

By addressing the issues outlined above, we will be able to provide members with the tools to form and express their own political stances, discuss these issues together as an organizing body, and move forward on actions that intentionally match our principles as a socialist organization. Ultimately, the goal of prioritizing items that increase our politicization is to aid SLDSA in becoming a strong, public-facing organization within Salt Lake City.

Politicizing DSA in Words and Principle

“How can I know what I think till I see what I say?”

– Graham Wallas, professor of political science and author of “The Art of Thought”

Standardizing political education amongst the chapter will allow members the opportunity to define their personal politics and build confident humility in these discussions. Building out our members’ vision of socialism will give SLDSA an understanding of how to move as an organized class. Determining the pathway ahead can only be done through providing a platform for budding socialists to interpret and envision a world without capitalism. 

The actual methods for providing education and gathering feedback from members on their political visions will have to vary in ways that respond to the needs of the chapter. One such method is already in the works: SLDSA has just passed a resolution to Restart the Socialist Night School Program. This will be a great way for us to understand how the chapter actually views socialist ideas and for us to discuss how these ideas show up in the world at large. However, the Socialist Night School is unlikely to cover ground with all of the chapter and can only cover so much information per session. To make up the difference and truly deepen our understanding of socialism, we will need to consider a variety of methods: Include a Civics 101 somewhere in the onboarding process, conduct internal townhalls with leadership, create a platform of local issues with members’ input, etc. 

While we learn to navigate the surge in membership, we will need to be flexible in addressing the varying degrees of political education. If we can adapt accordingly, SLDSA will be able to unify membership behind a shared goal, increasing member retention and our ability to meaningfully address capitalist issues in Salt Lake. 

It is possible to use the upcoming Mayday Convention as a way to gauge the feasibility of various approaches. However, as we are a month out from convention and leadership is still navigating the membership surge, I believe we will have to be explicitly mindful of capacity. One way we can approach this would be to hold a handful of “focus groups” which discuss what ways members want to increase their political knowledge and identify common principles within the chapter. It is arguable if all this is worthwhile in the face of capacity issues. We’re already working on ballot initiatives, community building, and carrying out political campaigns. We’re already doing the work. So what would actually change with the chapter? 

Politicizing DSA in Action

Identifying, and subsequently aligning, SLDSA’s principles with the actions we take as a chapter will help membership trust our motivations and allow us to be a united, public-facing organization. We can look to National DSA’s ability to navigate both reformist and revolutionary tactics for inspiration. Identifying techniques National has used, and applying principles identified within SLDSA to these techniques, we can begin to put our money where our mouth is.

At various levels, DSA chapters are experimenting with a two-tiered endorsement system: endorse democratic candidates on specific issues, and endorse explicitly DSA candidates running on a DSA platform. This is a necessary tool for us to learn to utilize within our chapter. Through projects like the Trans Sanctuary City Outreach campaign, we can begin to identify city council members, legislators, and other types of representatives who hold similar values to those identified in SLDSA. From these reps, we can pick out potential mentors who can help us run candidates of our own for municipal positions. While we work through National’s playbook on taking action, we can also begin to activate our base by using our identified platform to:

• release political statements on Salt Lake-specific issues 
• host more public-facing town halls like our SLDSA town hall in December and recent “Don’t Mourn, Organize” event

If we are able to utilize these different actions correctly, we can expect two main effects: membership engagement will increase (whether that be gaining new members or increasing member retention/involvement), and SLDSA will have a larger impact on the local political scene. We first achieve this by gaining membership trust. If we spend the time giving members the tools to identify and express their politics, listen to their collective concerns, and then move forward with actions which address those concerns, we will be one of only a handful of genuinely effective organizations within SLC. This will lend us an air of credibility with the wider public. From there, we can use public statements and town halls to clarify the political goals of each action we take. This is where we distinguish ourselves from reformists, even when utilizing reformist tactics. Through these actions, SLDSA will be able to successfully convert from a generic leftist NGO into a credible alternative to the two-party system within Salt Lake City. 

So, Politicize Me!

“The personal is political, and the political is personal”

-Anne Koedt and Shulamith Firestone, prominent writers and theorists of the Second Wave Feminist Movement

There’s something I believe is truly critical about this moment in time that keeps getting lost in the chaos: People are looking for solutions. While many leftists have seen the system’s pathway for decades (if not centuries), the working class is on the brink of collective class consciousness in the search for said solutions. At this time, people don’t want to just accept the lesser of two evils or settle for some reform. After decades of removing curriculum on civics from education, expanding ways in which legislators receive donations from billionaires (i.e. SuperPACs), and deliberately dividing people through curated algorithms, people are understanding that every aspect of our society has been intentionally crafted to dull us out of engagement. Anything and everything that is worth discussing has been put behind a wall of “too political to discuss”. So please, politicize me. Let’s talk.

The increased difficulty of having these conversations is intentional and we need to lean into it while we have the eyes and ears on us. Providing political education, hosting discussions over Mayday Convention, learning to work with representatives, and overall engaging in civics as socialists are the ways we offer ourselves as a solution to the working class. As we approach convention, both locally and nationally this year, I want to encourage open conversations and flexible minds as we navigate various approaches to a politicized Salt Lake DSA. 

References

Camejo, Peter. 1970. “Liberalism, Ultraleftism or Mass Action.” https://www.marxists.org/archive/camejo/1970/ultraleftismormassaction.htm (March 23, 2025).

“Electoral College | Civics 101 | PBS LearningMedia.” https://utah.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/electoral-college-civics-101/electoral-college-civics-101/ (March 23, 2025).

Graham Wallas. 1926. The Art of Thought. http://archive.org/details/theartofthought (March 25, 2025).

Green, Nato. “What Do Politics Have to Do with Me?”

“Leninism vs. Marxism – What’s the Difference?” This vs. That. https://thisvsthat.io/leninism-vs-marxism (March 23, 2025).

Nadeem, Reem. 2022. “As Partisan Hostility Grows, Signs of Frustration With the Two-Party System.” Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/08/09/as-partisan-hostility-grows-signs-of-frustration-with-the-two-party-system/ (March 25, 2025).

Npec, Dsa. 2023. “What Is Socialism?” DSA Political Education. https://dsa-education.pubpub.org/pub/what-is-socialism/release/6 (March 25, 2025).

“Ocasio-Cortez Tops Democrats’ Poll on Reflecting Party Values.” https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5198380-ocasio-cortez-leads-democrats/ (March 23, 2025).

“Platform – Seattle Democratic Socialists of America.” https://seattledsa.org/platform/ (March 25, 2025).

Reform & Revolution. 2025. “Reform & Revolution.” https://reformandrevolution.org/ (March 25, 2025).

“Sarah NPC Platform.” Google Docs. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MV9yskPsKXo7XDSzUfwdNFwlnz2l7pReCKam4Cr0Qe0/edit?tab=t.0&usp=embed_facebook (March 23, 2025).

“Super PAC – Ballotpedia.” https://ballotpedia.org/Super_PAC (March 25, 2025).

The post Politicize Me! The need to prioritize a politicized Salt Lake DSA first appeared on Salt Lake DSA.

On April 7, 2025, the University of Washington issued a statement informing the community that five current UW students and four recent graduates – who are still engaged with training programs at the university – have had their visas unilaterally revoked by the federal government. At this time, the university has not shared the reasons why these student visas have been revoked, but claim there is no indication that the decision is related to student activism, as has been the case for students at several other universities recently.

The university has demonstrated disdain for student activists and their recent decision to abandon prior commitments to consider divesting from the Israeli settler colonial project shows this. It is clear that this statement was issued to get ahead of any accusations that UW may be collaborating with ICE and capitulating to the federal government at the expense of student safety and inclusion of immigrants in our communities. However, the statement does not condemn the actions of the federal government, nor does it explicitly deny collaboration with immigration agencies, nor does it guarantee the university will abstain from engaging in such activities related to these or future immigration disputes. Given the gravity of current political conditions, it is a wholly inadequate statement. 

This event signals what’s to come. In the months and years ahead, we can expect to see continued repression of students, staff, and faculty, and punitive consequences for immigrants in particular. This is certain to have a chilling effect on free speech on campus, discouraging solidarity and direct action when it is needed most. We call on UW to consider reaffirming their stated values that they want to make the world a better place and that they are deeply committed to serving all their students. This is an opportunity for UW to stand up for its students’ safety and freedom of speech.

We must remind the University of Washington that it remains culpable in the vilification of students, staff, and faculty as a direct result of their Palestinian identity or solidarity. Even if the university is not actively collaborating with immigration agencies regarding the nine individuals currently facing deportation – or those who are sure to be impacted in the future – it certainly assisted in placing a target on many immigrants’ backs over the past eighteen months.

We call on the University of Washington to join other academic institutions, like Rutgers, that are taking a firm stand against the Trump administration’s attacks on academic freedom, and commit to prioritizing the safety of immigrant students, staff, and faculty by refusing to collaborate with or capitulate to federal agencies that aim to cause harm or forcibly remove immigrants from our communities. Additionally, we call on the Seattle City Council, Mayor Harrell, University Police, and the Seattle Police Department to similarly condemn the actions of the federal government and commit to refusing to collaborate with anti-immigrant federal agencies.

Let us be clear: this administration’s attacks will not end at international students, faculty, and staff. As we have witnessed the past year-and-a-half, Palestine solidarity activists immigrant and citizen alike have been doxed, dismissed from their jobs, and subject to law enforcement harassment. This administration is currently testing the limits of its capacity at state repression on marginalized communities, but it will not stop there. An attack on one is an attack on all. Only by standing together in solidarity will we defend ourselves and secure our collective liberation.

by Rajesh Barnabas

“Laundering Black rage means trying to get at something maybe even worse than co-optation, an actual means of governing people’s rage—to take that threat and then use it against them as a means of keeping them within the very framework that they’re pissed off about.”

• Too Black, author of Laundering Black Rage: The Washing of Black Death, People, Property, and Profits 

Kendrick Lamar, once considered the torch-bearer of conscious hip-hop, is flaming out. His rise as a social commentator, with albums like To Pimp a Butterfly and DAMN., made him the poster child for progressive, “woke” hip-hop. However, Lamar’s success has come at a price: compromising the authenticity of his message to fit the broader commercial mold. This phenomenon isn’t unique to Lamar but is part of a larger trend among entertainers and activists in the face of mainstream capitalism. 

Jay-Z’s role in the NFL’s “social justice” initiatives is a prime example of how those who were once considered radical in their activism are increasingly co-opted into serving corporate interests. Both Lamar and Jay-Z represent a shift in how the industry harnesses their influence for commercial purposes—turning revolutionary symbols into sellouts.

Kendrick Lamar’s Evolution: A Shift From Activism to Mainstream Success

Kendrick Lamar’s evolution as an artist is both a story of artistic brilliance and subtle co-optation. In the early stages of his career, Lamar presented himself as a staunch critic of systemic racism and inequality. His 2015 album, To Pimp a Butterfly, was a ground-breaking piece of work, using jazz, funk, and spoken word to explore Black identity, social issues, and institutional oppression. The album’s themes of Black empowerment were undeniably aligned with the ideals of the Black Lives Matter movement, and Lamar became a beacon of socially conscious hip-hop. However, as Lamar’s career continued, there was an increasing disconnect between his art and the world he once criticized.

Released amid the rise of the BLM movement, Alright (2015) became an anthem of perseverance for activists fighting against police brutality and systemic racism. The song’s chorus, “We gon’ be alright,” provided a mantra of hope, but the track itself stops short of advocating direct action or systemic overhaul. While Lamar acknowledges racial struggle in his verses, he ultimately turns to a spiritual and internal reassurance rather than a call for revolution. Compared to the more confrontational energy of protest movements at the time, Alright was powerful yet palatable—used in marches, but still digestible enough for broad consumption. 

It was reminiscent of an artist of the past who also provided transporting and calming tones to his tumultuous era. Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World (1967) emerged during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, a time of immense racial tension, protests, and radical demands for justice. The song’s serene imagery—“The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky, are also on the faces of people going by”—paints an idyllic picture that stands in stark contrast to the violence, segregation, and social upheaval of the 1960s. While Armstrong was a respected Black artist, his song did not reflect the direct struggles of the movement in the way that contemporaries like Nina Simone (Mississippi Goddam) or James Brown (Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud) did. Instead, What a Wonderful World functioned more as an escapist salve rather than a militant cry for justice.

A new documentary, Soundtrack to a Coup d’état (2024) details how Louis Armstrong and several other jazz legends of the 1960s were sent as “cultural ambassadors” to Africa, but dualed as decoys in the CIA’s plot to assassinate Congo’s prime minister Patrice Lumumba. Both Alright by Kendrick Lamar and What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong offer uplifting messages within their respective eras, but they also dilute the radical energy of the times in which they were created.

Lamar, like Armstrong, wants to float above it all. In the music video for “Alright”, Kendrick is hovering around the city of Oakland, while all sorts of chaos and partying and joy is happening below. It is a fitting image for the voyeuristic relationship Kendrick has with the streets, where he has the privilege of picking and choosing when he will embody the drama or escape from it. He is a butterfly that remains cozy in his capitalist cocoon, collecting massive royalties from fetishizing mass movements and cornering the market on obtuse political gestures. It is no wonder the weekend social justice warriors love him so much, he’s “just like us”. 

Dilution + Misdirection = Co-option

The indirect or “stylistic” effort from Lamar, veers sharply to the center when compared to the direct “Fuck The Police” messaging of the earlier South LA hip hop era—a legacy Lamar flaunts his intimacy with at every opportunity (see Grammy Acceptance Speech, 2025).

While his lyrical content still touches on issues of race, wealth inequality, and the struggles of Black America, his persona has increasingly been polished and marketed to a mainstream audience. One key indication of this came in 2015, in reference to the uprising in Ferguson following the killing of Michael Brown. In an interview with Billboard, Lamar said:

“I wish somebody would look in our neighborhood knowing that it’s already a situation, mentally, where it’s fucked up. What happened to [Michael Brown] should’ve never happened. Never. But when we don’t have respect for ourselves, how do we expect them to respect us? It starts from within. Don’t start with just a rally, don’t start from looting—it starts from within.” 

This two-tongued quote could have easily been ghost-written by Barack Obama. With his brand of ‘pull your pants up’ messaging to Black people, the President perfected a call to ‘sit-down-be-humble’ in the face of mass movements; inspiring meaningless individualized action and inaction. The shift in his role should be expected, given Lamar’s vaulted position in the highly commercialized music industry and his growing ties with brands and high-profile corporate deals. Lamar’s business decisions, including signing endorsement deals with companies like Reebok and Apple ensure his loyalty to the system. While it is understandable for artists to capitalize on their success, the sheer volume of commercial endorsement deals raises questions about whether Lamar’s message of resistance has been diluted in favor of fame and profit. 

As one critic that goes by the moniker The-CollegeDropIn put it: 

“How can Kendrick go from making an album about labels pimping artists and robbing them of their creative visions, while calling out corporate fat-cats who are partially responsible for the suffering poor blacks face, to literally making an album for corporate fat cats who produce the most vapid, meaningless shit. People acting like Black Panther has anything to do with being black, or being Afrocentric. ‘Oh look guys, we have a black director’, who’s literally no more than a tool of old white people who tell him how to make the movie as vapid as possible.”

Moreover, Lamar’s participation in major award shows, like the Grammys, often blurs the line between activism and entertainment. Though he sporadically uses his platform to address systemic racism, his affiliation with the corporate sponsors of these events—who often profit from the very systems he critiques—raises concerns about the veracity of his activism.

“This is what it’s about, man. Because at the end of the day, nothing is more powerful than rap music. We are the culture. It’s gonna always stay here and live forever.” He continued his vague inspirational platitudes with this: “To the young artists, I just hope you respect the art form, get you where you need to go.”

Lamar’s ascension in the industry was directly related to his transformation into a West Coast Drake, excavating his eclectic inner emotions and existential struggles. Again, from The_CollegeDropIn:

“Nowadays he is just music for white kids at a frat party. Humble is a good song, but it’s no more than a banger for a bunch of white kids doing E, with one or two middle class Black kids acting like it’s the most fire shit ever, dabbing and yelling. Kendrick is just too popular now for his own good. Everyone just sees him as this ‘woke, deep’ rapper, but since his audience is now a bunch of white kids who play football, he can’t rap about anything woke or deep, so he raps about stupid ‘internal struggles’ and stuff, because that’s the only ‘struggle’ rich white people can relate to.” 

It is this metamorphosis that distinguished Lamar as the “Patron Saint of the Literati” as music writer Taylor Crumpton described him, “the darling of the Grammys.” Only then is he canonized by the all-white Pulitzer Prize committee, with their refined tastes.  

In essence, Lamar’s presence in these spaces shows that more often than not, artists take the easier path, and become subservient to the systems that be.  

Jay-Z: The NFL’s New “Social Justice” Mouthpiece

While Lamar’s evolution into a mainstream figure may reflect the natural course of a successful artist’s career, Jay-Z’s involvement with the NFL represents a more explicit and calculated effort to suppress the militant response to racial injustice in America. In 2019, Jay-Z struck a deal with the NFL to become the league’s “social justice advisor” and oversee its entertainment programming, including the Super Bowl halftime show. On the surface, this seemed like a victory for social justice—an attempt to incorporate activism into the NFL’s platform. However, beneath the surface, Jay-Z’s partnership with the NFL can be viewed as a strategic maneuver to placate the militant sentiments within Black America.

Kaepernick’s protest against police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem ignited a national debate and ultimately led to his exclusion from the NFL. The NFL’s response to Kaepernick was a blatant display of how corporate interests can quash social activism when it becomes too inconvenient. Jay-Z’s involvement with the NFL was seen by many as an attempt to neutralize the growing outrage surrounding Kaepernick’s treatment. Eric Reid, who took a knee alongside teammate Kaepernick summed up Jay-Z’s dealings with the NFL this way:

“Jay-Z doesn’t need the NFL’s help to address social injustices. It was a money move for him and his music business. The NFL gets to hide behind his Black face to try to cover up blackballing Colin.”

By taking a seat at the table, Jay-Z could be positioned as a middleman—someone who understood the concerns of the Black community but was willing to work within the system to create incremental change. Recall now Jay-Z’s legacy of being a go-between for the capitalist class and activists. During the Occupy Movement in 2010-11, he donned an “Occupy All Streets” t-shirt, which his Rocawear company sold with the intention of “reminding people that there is change to be made everywhere, not just on Wall Street.” This kind of “All Lives Matter” misdirection was an intentional ploy to water down the political outrage of the times. In his own words: 

“Yeah, the one per cent that’s robbing people, and deceiving people, these fixed mortgages and all these things, and then taking their home away from them, that’s criminal, that’s bad,” he told Zadie Smith in the Times. “[But it’s] not [bad] being an entrepreneur. This is free enterprise. This is what America is built on.”

Jay-Z had officially joined the Obama cult of two-tongued liaisons of the oppressor class. With a networth of 2.5 Billion, Jay-Z was obviously wary of the broadside indictment on the 1% club he was now a member of.  

Fast-forward to 2020 and Jay-Z’s decision to work with the NFL is widely criticized as an opportunistic move. Jay-Z, who had built his brand as a socially conscious rapper, was now merely serving as a tool for the NFL to manage its public relations crisis. In his piece Jay-Z Isn’t a Sellout, He’s a Capitalist, sports writer Dave Zirin described the deal this way:

“With the subtlety of a blowtorch, they staged this [press announcement] on the third anniversary of Kaepernick’s first anthem protest. The message was clear: This was about turning the page on Kaepernick and any protest that would directly confront racism either in the NFL or on the platform the league provides.”

Rather than pushing for radical change, Jay-Z’s NFL partnership ultimately served to whitewash the league’s history of racial discrimination, positioning him as a figurehead for a more palatable, corporate-friendly form of activism.

“The Art of the Deal” and the Commercialization of Black Resistance

It all came together—two titans of the hip hop world united at this moment, Jay-Z and K-dot, producing their own version of the “The Art of the Deal” on the highest stage—Superbowl Sunday, February 9, 2025. 

Enter Lamar, who spent much of last year invoking Tupac’s name, in his corporate-approved pickleball battle with Drake, because he can’t stand on his own revolutionary anti-establishment legacy. Kendrick’s vocal delivery (sounding like a chipmunk on these latest tracks) and politics becomes more and more shrill, that is why he is acceptable for the military-imbued, Air Force fly-over NFL showcase event. Drake may be good for listening to in places like Target, Kendrick is good-listening for the  Blue MAGA, blue chip neoliberal “conscious” activists. It’s a one-size-fits-all messaging for anyone on the front lines of their own personalized existential conflict who needs abstract anthems to justify anything “We gonna be alright…”—the lyrical equivalent of “Just Do It”.

Kendrick claims to be no one’s Savior, nor should entertainers be, but his move to play during the capitalist half-time showcase seems especially tone deaf, given the US/Israel genocidal program in Palestine. And afterall, have the We Charge Genocide conditions for Black Americans, that Kaepernick was trying to bring attention to, really changed in the decade since he took a knee?  But when white supremacy is on the rise or in doubt, send in neoliberal necromancers Kamala and Kendrick, America’s DEI special agents of the moment to smooth over imperialism. 

So desperate for a win, the K-hive was all about it, interpreting all sorts of deeper mysticism and political meaning to the halftime show. The euphoria over make-believe political moments was reminiscent of the bonanza over the Black Panther movies. How much kool-aid was imbibed to think Wakanda and the Superdome were real places? Lamar’s act may have been subversive 25 years ago, when Spike Lee’s film Bamboozled (2000) came out, but presently it seems like he and Jay-Z are the ones donning blackface for flimsy dog and donkey shows; super performative politics for the Super Bowl. 

“Not Like Us” could easily serve as the perfect anthem for MAGA members of the audience and their Tsar. It is a hyper nativist screed, scapegoating a foreign competitor who really isn’t the source of your problems. That this becomes high art, Grammy garnering, Taylor Swift shimmying material, is in direct relation to its commercial service as a misdirection tool, a political distraction from the real culprits.   

Kendrick Lamar and Jay-Z have thus become master magicians, meta artists of misdirection. Their respective transformations highlight the higher level reality within the entertainment industry: the cleansing and commodification of Black resistance. The initial raw power of Lamar and Jay-Z’s messages has been diluted, as both artists’ platforms have been absorbed by larger, profit-driven systems. Lamar, once hailed for his incisive critiques of American capitalism, has found himself pimped, playing by the rules of that very system. Similarly, Jay-Z, a figure who once prided himself on his ability to challenge the all-white managerial class, has become a key player in a corporate machine that thrives on stifling dissent.

Both Lamar and Jay-Z’s actions speak to a broader issue within the world of hip-hop and activism. The mainstreaming of Black resistance often comes with a heavy price. What was once radical and confrontational is transformed into something palatable for the masses—an acceptable form of activism that doesn’t challenge the power structures that created inequality in the first place. The irony of Lamar’s success is that his music has been sanitized by the very systems of capitalism, corporate sponsorship, and celebrity culture that he once criticized. The irony of Jay-Z’s NFL deal is that, despite his commitment to social justice, his partnership with the NFL league has failed to deliver any meaningful change, instead offering the illusion of progress.

Conclusion: Action Speaks Louder than Lyrics

Kendrick Lamar’s transformation from an artist rooted in Black resistance to a mainstream celebrity reflects the challenges of maintaining authenticity in a system that thrives on profit over principle. Meanwhile, Jay-Z’s involvement with the NFL demonstrates how corporate interests can weaponize activism to undermine more radical, transformative movements. Both men have navigated the complexities of fame, capitalism and activism, but in doing so, they have softened their stances, trading authenticity for visibility and influence. As the commercialization of Black activism continues, the question remains: how can artists and activists remain true to their cause without becoming instruments of the very systems they aim to dismantle?

Finally, for further investigation and possible solutions to this dilemma, we could simply turn back to Lamar’s original work To Pimp A Butterfly, a metaphor for society’s “pimping” of young Black men for their artistic talent —the butterfly, while simultaneously driving them towards materialistic self-destruction. A deeper look at the political art of deception is found in Laundering Black Rage: The Washing of Black Death, People, Property, and Profits, by Rasul A. Mowatt and Too Black. Provided in its description:

“[It] Examines how Black rage—conceived as a constructive and logical response to the conquest of resources, land, and human beings racialized as Black—is cleaned for the unyielding means of White capital. Interlacing political theory with international histories of Black rebellion, it presents a thoughtful challenge to the counterinsurgent tactics of the State that consistently convert Black Rage into a commodity to be bought, sold, and repressed. Laundering Black Rage investigates how the Rage directed at the police murder of George Floyd could be marshalled to funnel the Black Lives Matter movement into corporate advertising and questionable leadership, while increasing the police budgets inside the laundry cities of capital — largely with our consent.”

“Rage is not enough. What are you going to do in response to that issue? The further the response is from the issue that produced the rage, the more it opens the doorway for laundering.”

— Rasul Mowatt

The post Jay-Z & Kendrick Lamar: A Case Study in Laundering Black Rage & The Subtle Erosion of Wokeness first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

By Henry De Groot, Travis Wayne, Reid Jackson, Aaron Hall

Timeline:

1. Tuesday, March 25: ICE abducts SEIU member Rümeysa Öztürk in Somerville
2. Wednesday, March 26: Thousands enraged at Somerville’s Powder House Square after mobilization in 6 hours
3. Thursday, March 27: Hundreds swarm outside Somerville City Council to apply pressure on councillors to vote for BDS. ICE abducts another SEIU member: Lewelyn Dixon
4. Wednesday, April 2: Labor, both grassroots locals and SEIU International, rally against ICE abductions in Boston
5. Saturday, April 5: Free Rümeysa movement joins with anti-DOGE movement with rally of 20,000 on Boston Common
   

Tuesday, March 25: Tufts Union Worker Detained By ICE In Somerville

By Henry De Groot

SOMERVILLE, MA – Tufts University PhD student Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish national, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on the evening of March 25, 2025. According to Öztürk’s attorney, sources report, Öztürk has a valid F-1 visa and was returning home to meet with friends and break her Ramadan fast when she was detained by federal agents, near Electric Avenue and Mason Street in Somerville, just a block away from Tufts’ campus in Medford. Some reports indicate that agents had been circling her neighborhood in unmarked vehicles for several days.

The university administration reports they were told that Ozturk’s visa has been terminated. They shared the following statement:

In March 2024, Öztürk was one of four authors of an Op-Ed in the The Tufts Daily, the school’s student newspaper, titled “Try again, President Kumar: Renewing calls for Tufts to adopt March 4 TCU Senate resolutions.” The article called on the universities’ administration to implement the anti-genocide resolutions adopted by the Tufts Community Union Senate.

Öztürk is a member of Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Local 509. Her attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai, filed a petition of habeas corpus in Massachusetts federal court for her to be released. US District Court Judge Indira Talwani issued a 3-page ruling that Öztürk was not to be moved out of the state without prior notice, but the Trump Administration ignored the judicial order and moved her to Louisiana — where the Trump Administration has detained several targeted immigrant workers targeted as part of the Palestine movement.

The action comes as ICE reports that it arrested 370 migrants across Massachusetts after a multi-day raid targeting over 350 immigrant workers.

Öztürk’s detention is just the latest in a series of actions targeting university students, workers, and faculty as Trump carries out his election promise to deport foreign students who participated in pro-Palestinian and anti-war efforts. Öztürk was listed by the right-wing doxing website Canary Mission back in February 2025.

Our coverage at Working Mass of Rümeysa Öztürk’s abduction played a role in national attention: within a few days, over 1 million viewers had seen the footage with tens of thousands of interactions. As of this writing, 8 million viewers have seen Working Mass’s thread.

Wednesday, March 26: Somerville Stops Short of Escalation in Powder House Square

By Travis Wayne

Somerville, MA – On March 26, the Coalition for Palestinian Liberation at Tufts and the Palestine Youth Movement organized an emergency protest against ICE with dozens of other groups – notably unions, like Rümeysa Öztürk’s own Local 509, within six hours the day following the abduction of Tufts grad worker Rümeysa Öztürk. Union members reported to Working Mass that the local’s members embedded in the same higher education sectors of the union as Rümeysa organized heavy turnout. Foot traffic converged across the city as thousands descended upon one site: Powder House Park, the same hill where crowds decided to organize the Minutemen information network that sustained the American Revolution to throw off British rule. Rally organizers were aware of the symbolism. Powder House Square was where one tyrant’s end began; “We are about to do it again,” tour docent Mary Mangan shouted. Boston DSA released a rapid-fire email before 9 AM calling for mobilization to Powder House. The Somerville branch of the mass organization conducted direct outreach to hundreds of active members and supporters to mobilize their relative networks to the square. 

After two hours of speeches, including rights training and mass education on the LUCE hotline for reporting ICE, the rally dispersed. Organizations returned to their networks to discuss how to translate LUCE hotline information into other languages and how to host similar rainings to raise community defense in their own constituencies. Willie Burnley Jr, DSA elected and Somerville City Councillor, sent out the LUCE flyer to his mass base. Somerville DSA members targeted pedestrian hot spots with hundreds of such flyers alongside organization meeting information on the hotline for reporting ICE and scheduled a Somerville ICE Watch guest speaker to conduct training for their next meeting.

Thursday, March 27: Cops Fight Off Hundreds from Entering Somerville City Hall in Support of Palestine

By Travis Wayne

Somerville, MA – On March 27, the day after thousands swarmed Powder House Square, masses of people surged at the guards of Somerville City Hall. Hundreds more than anticipated showed up at Somerville City Council’s meeting, thundering slogans.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHuKd3nM-26/?igsh=MWFmeXM5b2o2d2Y0ZA==

People were responding to an action call from Palestine organizers uniting to free Rümeysa Öztürk at Powder House Square the day before: support Somerville for Palestine‘s measure to end Somerville investment in Israeli apartheid by vote.

Despite hundreds shouting slogans outside, Somerville City Council chose to require Somerville for Palestine to organize to place the BDS municipal resolution on the November ballot instead of make a clear vote. “To get this question officially on the ballot, we need to collect signatures from at least 10% of Somerville’s registered voters,” organizers reported. Only two city councilors voted with Somerville for Palestine: DSA elected officials JT Scott and Willie Burnley Jr., endorsed a week later on April 6 by Boston DSA in his campaign for highest office in the area: Mayor of Somerville. Burnley expressed his frustration with fellow councilors to Working Mass:

I am deeply disappointed that my colleagues refused to honor the efforts of Rümeysa Öztürk and the advocates in our community that have called for divestment from companies complicit with Israel’s occupation, apartheid, and genocide by refusing to take this vote. As always, my faith remains in the people to struggle for liberation and dignity of us all.

The same day, ICE abducted Lewelyn Dixon – a lab technician and member of Local 925 of SEIU.

Dixon was the second SEIU member kidnapped by ICE.

Wednesday, April 2: Labor and Mass Organizations Unite Against ICE Abductions

By Reid Jackson

BOSTON, MA – After thousands flooded Somerville’s Powder House Square to protest the abduction of Rümeysa Öztürk before nearly overwhelming guards at Somerville City Hall for Palestine the next day, labor and local mass organizations united in Boston City Hall Plaza across the Charles River on April 2. Öztürk’s own Local 509 was joined by its Service Employees International Union raging against the abduction of two of its members, United Auto Workers, Boston Teachers Union, and the MIT Graduate Student Union, along with Boston DSA and other labor-oriented mass organizations, all came together with a message: demand for the immediate release of union siblings Rümeysa Öztürk and Lewelyn Dixon from ICE custody. The rally was attended by hundreds of union members and unorganized workers supporting labor that filled the crowd in front of the John F. Kennedy Federal Building. 

Protesters came with signs, homemade and provided by the unions, each with their own message urging for the release of Rümeysa. A twenty footlong custom banner with Rümeysa’s likeness drawn read: “writing an op-ed is not a crime!” referencing the alleged reason for her abduction. Working families brought their kids in strollers and bundled them up for the brisk April weather. No chant went unanswered as the crowd rumbled through building canyons around.

Come for one, face us all! Free Rümeysa, free us all!

These chants were led by speakers who spoke on a platform and podium brought by labor to the face of the imposing JFK Federal Building. Among the speakers were April Verrett, President of the SEIU; Patricia Jehlen, State Senator for the district Rümeysa lived in; and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu on the need for the city of Boston and the Commonwealth itself to unite to protect our neighbors who could be the next targets of the Trump Administration. Verrett from the SEIU stood defiant:

We dealt with the dreams deferred too long. We’ve got to seize this moment and make it ours. We’re right here. We’re not backing down. We want Rümeysa back. We want Lewelyn Dixon back. We want every single person who has been detained. We want them back.

Two nights later, SEIU projected two messages over the Boston Common: “No Scabs, No Fascists.” Another showed Rümeysa’s face with the message “Free Rümeysa Now!”

Image of projections from Boston Common by SEIU. Photo by SEIU Local 509.

Saturday, April 5: “Hands Off Boston” Rallies Over 20,000 to Boston Common

By Aaron Hall and Travis Wayne

BOSTON, MA —- In the late morning of April 5, 2025, over 20,000 protestors gathered in the warming Boston Common to demonstrate against Trump and the billionaire clique’s rapid power grab overseen by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) abducting people like Rümeysa Öztürk. The event was sponsored by around 118 organizations, from unions to volunteer organizations, including the Federal Unionists Network (FUN) recently founded by militant workers organizing their coworkers whose jobs and union contracts are under direct siege in the tens of thousands by DOGE.

The protest connected the movement to Free Rümeysa with the movement to defend union jobs and social services under attack by the Trump Administration. The event coincided with a historic wave of 1,200 similar protests worldwide that roiled everywhere from coastal cities to inland conservative towns under the banner of “Hands Off 2025.”

At 11:20 am, the “Hands Off” masses marched on Boston City Hall for speeches by Sen. Ed Markey, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Director of APICAN Jaya Savita, Massachusetts AFL-CIO president Chrissy Lynch, AFT-MA president Jessica Tang, AFGE Council 215 president Rich Couture, and co-founder of Trans Resistance Chastity Bowick. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu made a surprise appearance.

The abduction of grad worker Rümeysa Öztürk from Greater Boston was front and center for many speakers, as it was in Washington. The day before, a judge ruled her case would be considered in Vermont instead of Louisiana (which would prove only a temporary victory, as U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III would on April 7 deny the request to order ICE to release Rümeysa). Speakers fused their calls for her release with the specter of the billionaire capture of the federal government and the continued genocide in Gaza. Protestors carried signs painting Trump and Elon Musk as Nazis and the administration’s actions as fascistic.

The mass scale of “Hands Off” could mark a shift in public opinion against the Trump Administration, as well as bridging between the struggles to Free Rümeysa, free Palestine, and free the masses from the billionaire capture of the U.S. federal government. Speakers spoke against wealth inequality and blatant corruption in the state. Sen. Ed Markey called out billionaires for “standing right behind [Trump].” And as liberal organizations delivered speeches, Boston DSA mobilized a legion of organizers to hold organizing conversations to ask rally attendees to fight fascism with long-term organizing while distributing Workers Deserve More pamphlets to demonstrators gathered across the Boston Common.

The demonstration ended with the Dropkick Murphys performing a labor song pulled from the 1930s: Pete Seeger’s “Which Side Are You On?”

That day, Rümeysa released a statement through her attorney:

When the crowd of tens of thousands dispersed from the Boston Common, opinions were mixed. The movement had swelled with popular support fueled by outrage at the abduction of a community member along with a slew of other grievances against the billionaire’s assault on working people. But popular support for the shared demand to free Rümeysa did not mean everyone was a socialist. Liberal flags for every cause were seen beside socialist banners, including at least a few “Hands Off NATO.”

Nonetheless, the local movement did signal a newly-fused political coalition. Corey S, co-chair of Boston DSA, told Working Mass:

As a person of color, Rümeysa Öztürk’s abduction has been a stark reminder that none of us are safe when ICE is able to roam freely. . . but something heartening to see out of all of this is the cooperation between two groups that historically weren’t as aligned: pro-Palestine groups and labor.

Neither flashes of militancy nor mass popular demonstration across Greater Boston has won Öztürk’s release, but ICE abductions of union workers activated new swathes of labor against the Trump Administration. That includes grassroots locals like Öztürk’s SEIU Local 509 and its powerful international SEIU. The largest private sector union is now in open confrontation with the Trump Administration, joining federal workers already organizing against Trump and Musk’s attacks in defense of their jobs and social services that union workers provide to the people. Coalition partners in the Palestine movement continue to rattle Greater Boston with their demands — including divestment, as Rümeysa Öztürk called for in her op-ed for which ICE abducted her. Both movements are working closer together.

Nonetheless, for now, Rümeysa remains unfree.

Henry De Groot is the managing editor of Working Mass and a member of Boston DSA.

Travis Wayne is the deputy managing editor of Working Mass and co-chair of the Somerville branch of Boston DSA.

 Reid Jackson is a contributing writer at Working Mass and a former member of the University of Rhode Island YDSA.

Aaron Hall is a biotech worker and a contributing writer for Working Mass.

The April 5 Hands Off! protests were not the first against Trump and his cronies and they won’t be the last. Indeed, April 5 would not have been possible without unionized federal and postal workers and teachers and students marching and sticking up for themselves. But Saturday saw more than a million people demonstrate their willingness to fight back and that has changed the mood. Millions of people passed over from shock and awe to hell no!

But our unions, communities, and social movements are suffering from decades of free-trading and neoliberal attacks and racist, sexist, and anti-LGTBQ+ bigotry, all of which have weakened our organizing capacity. Trump does not yet care about opposition from below. He’s golfing. We’ll see which way the markets go in the coming days. Big investors may force Trump to modify his tariff trade war in their favor, or they may simply ride it out in exchange for massive tax cuts. And if the courts have shown a willingness to slow down his blitzkrieg, when it comes down to it, relying on the Supreme Court to reign in Trump means relying on Brett Kavanaugh… a grim prospect indeed. Either way, it would be a mistake to underestimate MAGAism’s staying power and the administration’s willingness to stick to its guns. Remember, Reagan used the 1981-82 recession to smash unions and attack social spending.

How do we confront this situation in the immediate and medium term? The long term matters as well but it will be conditioned by what we are able to accomplish in the coming few years.

[Read next: Thousands say Hands Off Maine!]

We all belong to some kind of organization or community. And some have deep roots and traditions anchoring them in decades or centuries of struggle. For instance, the Wabanaki people have endured 500 years of colonial assault and today form one of the most effective and sophisticated political powers in what we call Maine. The Maine AFL-CIO brings together more than 200 unions, representing 40,000 workers across the entire state with a proud history of strikes and struggles. The Maine Council of Churches builds bridges between congregations and faiths and has long stood for social justice. Advocacy organizations like Maine People’s Alliance, Equality Maine, and the League of Conservation Voters shine a light on discrimination and speak up for poor and marginalized communities. The Maine Immigrants Rights Coalition, Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, and Presente! Maine all give voice and provide legal and mutual aid to New Mainers. The Maine Coalition for Palestine and Bowdoin Students for Justice in Palestine have forced us all to confront our own elected officials support for the genocide in Gaza. The Maine Democratic Socialists of America is one of the new kids on the block, but has demonstrated an ability to work on multiple fronts, including winning office and important reforms in Portland. And Indivisible and Maine Resists provided the infrastructure for the April 5 protests themselves. There are, of course, hundreds of local and statewide groups I can’t list here. The point is, Maine does not suffer from organizing capacity. 

All these organizations have different levels of capacity and bring different expertise, resources, and priorities to the table. It is rarely possible to agree on everything, but under certain conditions, a great deal of unity can be created—not in the abstract—but in action. And this is exactly what we need today. Maine needs a united front to defend ourselves from Trump’s attacks and build a powerful enough movement to turn the tide back towards The Way Life Should Be for all of us. 

[Read next: Solidarity against Trump means joining an organization]

The first thing to keep in mind is that a united front is a process. Building unity between different social and political forces takes time, both to build up a set of common experiences and develop the necessary trust to withstand setbacks and differences of opinion. Some may say that time is precisely what we don’t have, instead, we must act now at all costs without patiently building up the durability of our own peoples movements. This is how Trump wants us to think. We can’t fall for it. This doesn’t mean we can’t act quickly, but it does mean that we must move together and, like it or not, that takes time to plan.

Here are some ABCs to begin thinking about how to accomplish this. 

Bring together organizations facing a common threat who see the need to build solidarity to defend themselves and to defend the rights and well-being of others. No one organization or community claims to speak for all of Maine. If we want to create a real democratic power, we must recognize that power can only be assembled by mutual recognition. 

Make decisions openly and democratically. This is easier said than done, but it is essential for building an effective movement. Trump wants to destroy democracy, if we want to transform our community groups, unions, and organizations into centers of people power, then we should give people a place to practice it. We open the DOOR: Discuss and decide. Organize and act. Observe and assess. Repeat and improve. 

March separately, but strike together. Partners in a united front can agree on basic points of unity and basic norms of cooperation. All groups should promote common objectives and actions, for instance, we will all cooperate to organize at X time and Y place or places on May Day. However, each group retains the freedom to publicize and promote their own particular political program and organize their own independent actions. Trust and credibility are the ties that help bind us together when inevitable stresses arrive. 

Solidarity and action are the keys. A united front is not a political party. It is not a debating society. It is not a walk in the park. It is an agreement between organizations to take concrete action to defend one another and to tilt the balance of forces towards the common good. Rather than writing long treatises, united fronts work best when they focus on concrete action. 

Leaders, organizers, artists, participants all play a role. We ought to make it as easy to participate as possible. This means publicizing events and inviting people through all available means, but especially through face-to-face discussions. We need organizers who are willing to dedicate time to running committees. We need artists who can make our work beautiful and fun. And we need leaders. Leaders in a social movement are not appointed. They have to earn their stripes by strengthening common bonds and articulating mutual aspirations as well as developing useful strategies and tactics. 

Organize locally, coordinate statewide. Maine is a big state and no town or region has to wait for anyone’s permission to call a local meeting and start organizing. United fronts can begin in a town, a county, or a region, or among students at different schools, or members of different unions or community groups. The more organizing going on at the local level, the more powerful our efforts will be when we combine into coordinated statewide action. Local and statewide actions can be mutually reinforcing. 

What does this mean in Maine? A couple weeks ago, the Chicago Teachers Union hosted people from more than 200 organizations to plan for a mass action on May day. As Bernie might say, it’s going to be HUGE! We face different circumstances here and there is no ready-made blueprint. We may fail or only partially succeed at first. But practice makes perfect. And what other choice do we have? May Day in Maine is a good place to start. 

If you’re looking for a place to get involved, email info@mainedsa.org

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