Portside

“With our future on the line and the whole world watching, we’ll take a stand to bend the course of history. We’ll take to the streets to demand the world we know is within our reach: a world with an economy that works for people and the planet; a world safe from the ravages of climate change; a world with good jobs, clean air and water, and healthy communities. To change everything, we need everyone on board.”

The civil rights movement inspired sanitation workers’ strikes throughout the South. Teachers in Florida and Utah pulled off statewide walkouts. Postal workers struck nationwide, in a wildcat conducted against the wishes of union leaders. Police and firefighters contracted “blue flu” and “red rashes” to demand what private sector workers already had: the right to bargain. This wave of militancy won both contracts and changes in labor law.

The June 27 pro-union rally by an estimated 400 students, activists, ministers and workers in front of the mile-long Nissan plant here was the perfect culmination of the Mississippi Freedom Summer 50th Anniversary Conference in nearby Jackson.

The new president of the largest teachers union in the country will become the voice of roughly 3 million teachers at perhaps the most critical moment in the National Education Association’s history. First item on the agenda: Win back the public.

People are not just riled up, they're on the move. Backed by Public Citizen, Common Cause, People for the American Way, Free Speech for People, Move to Amend, the Communications Workers of America, and other national groups, local and state coalitions have been tilling the grassroots across the country and are producing a bounty of support for an amendment. If you're not already doing it, do all you can-join in, stand up, speak out, stand strong. History is calling us.