Today I am rewriting the lyrics to Solidarity Forever – 99 years after they were penned. I will be singing this at our Study Session and Rally on Monday. #thisismystrikepay

Solidarity Forever: Ralph Chaplin (1915)

Lyrics updated by Leah Kelley (2014)

When the union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
But the union makes us strong.

CHORUS:
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
For the union makes us strong.

Is there aught we hold common in the fight for workers’ rights,
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
For the union makes us strong.

It is we who plowed the prairies; built the cities where they trade;
Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid;
Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made;
But the union makes us strong.

Our communities and classrooms and the places we call home,                                 Where we laid the wide foundations; built it skyward stone by stone.
It is ours, not to slave in, but to master and to own.
While the union makes us strong.

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We’ll fight to put those millions back to help our students learn
And the union makes us strong.

In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold,
With the futures of our children magnified a thousand-fold.
We can fight to bring the language back from contract days of old
For the union makes us strong.

H in 2002 – a student who needs support!! http://30daysofautism.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/deconstruction-by-design-a-visual-history-of-the-liberal-attack-on-education/ … Rail on!! #BCTF #thisismystrikepay 

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30 Days of Autism is a project designed to fight stigma, promote civil rights, and increase understanding and acceptance for those who process and experience the world differently.

© Leah Kelley, Thirty Days of Autism (2014)