RRecovering from recent surgery for colon cancer won’t stop James Phipps, 75, from attending a “No Kings” protest Saturday in Chicago, Illinois. “I have a burning desire to be part of the protest.” Because that’s all I’ve done my whole life, he said.
Phipps, who was born in Marks, Mississippi, was included He has been involved in the civil rights movement of the 1960s since he was 13, when he was part of the racial integration of his local high school and organizing with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. At the age of fifteen, he became involved with the Mississippi Free Labor Union (MFLU), which organized Farmers to get better wages.
At that time, the MFLU was organizing cotton pickers. “They were making 30 cents an hour, working in the hot sun, 10 hours a day, which was $3, 2½ cents per pound of cotton,” Phipps said. “They broke their necks, backs, pelvises and knees.”
“They did not receive any medical care,” he added. “That’s one of the main things on my mind right now.”
Phipps, who now works in administrative support in Cook County, is a member of SEIU Local 73.
He was grateful to have health insurance to cover his recent cancer surgery. The federal government shutdown continues, after Democrats called on Republicans to address recent Medicaid cuts under Donald Trump and extend health insurance subsidies set to expire at the end of the year. An expiration would set the stage for rapidly rising premiums and risk keeping an estimated 3.1 million Americans out of health insurance.
“You have greedy men who are only thinking about one thing, which is improving their wallet and their financial well-being,” said Phipps, who has also been disturbed by the aggressive raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in Chicago. The Trump administration defended the raids with false and misleading claims about the crime.
“There’s no reason you should be walking in the streets, taking people out of their homes, who have been here for 20 or 30 years,” he said. “I had Mexican neighbors living next door to me for 41 years. They were some of my best friends in life. We bonded over each other.
“We were social with the neighbors, with each other, and we loved each other. When one saw someone died or there was a problem, we were really there.”
Phipps said there are similarities between how immigrants are treated under Trump and the discriminatory laws he grew up under in Mississippi.
“The same struggle that Mexican Americans and people of color go through, we’ve been going through ever since 1619“Especially in the South when we had Jim Crow. If you dared do anything back then to confront them about the way they were treated, you would end up being found in the river or lynched somewhere, so I sympathize with what’s going on,” he said.
“We didn’t want kings then, and we don’t want kings now.”
Some of the largest labor unions in the United States are included In organizing “No Kings” protests, with more than 2,600 demonstrations planned in all 50 states, in cooperation with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of Teachers.
“Unions realize that voice in work creates power for ordinary people at work,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. “Unions realize that voice in democracy creates power for ordinary people, for workers in society.” “These are two of the main ways that ordinary people have any power.
“We and the workers understand that you need to have a voice to have freedom. Freedom does not come without a voice.”
While prominent Republicans and Trump administration officials have claimed that the protests amount to “hate-America” rallies – in stark contrast to Trump’s description of the January 6 rioters as “patriots.” Republican Congressman Tom Emmer went so far as to suggest that Democrats were caving in to the “pro-terrorism wing of their party” by siding with Republican demands to address recent cuts to Medicaid and expand health insurance subsidies.
Weingarten said the events were actually a response to Trump’s abuse of power, and intended to express frustration with his administration’s failure to deal with issues like rising grocery and health care prices.
“I love America and I resent anyone who tries to take away my patriotism because I want the promise of America to be true for all Americans,” she said. “This is the place to work. They want the American promise to be real for our members, for their families, and for the people we serve.”
“Our founders were a rebel group who said, ‘We don’t want kings.’ And now, 249 years later, people say, ‘No, we meant it.’ There are a lot of things we’ve changed in America, but one of the things that has remained constant is that we didn’t want kings then, and we don’t want kings now.
“The real threat to this country is not peaceful protesters. It’s politicians who shut down our government to protect billionaires and corporate greed,” said Jaime Contreras, executive vice president of SEIU 32 BJ, which represents 185,000 janitors, security officers, airport workers and other service employees around the U.S. East Coast. “What’s ironic to me is that you call peaceful protesters ‘terrorists,’ but the people who destroyed our nation’s Capitol are ‘patriots.’
“On October 18, SEIU members will be on the streets across the country as part of the No Kings campaign [protests]Because America belongs to the people, the workers, not to billionaires or a few politicians who think they can rule like kings in a democracy like ours.