Category: Political

  • Allston-Brighton Head Start faces closure, sparks gentrification discussion

    Facing pressure from developers, the Action for Boston Community Development Head Start and Early Head Start center located in Brighton faces a potential closing. A nationwide program that provides early childhood education, health, and nutrition services for low-income families, the Brighton center currently services an estimated 100 children. On May 17, Brighton parents gathered at…

  • Negotiations Between Emerson Service Workers Union, University at Standstill

    Emerson College staff have been meeting as much as twice a week after redoubling efforts to conclude 20 months of negotiations between their union and the university’s management. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 888 Emerson Staff Union was created in late 2017 and has 140 members that provide administrative services and support to…

  • Inmate Spends Ten Days in solitary Confinement to Protest Lack of Clean Water

    Wayland Coleman, an inmate at MCI-Norfolk — a prison that has been under scrutiny for inaction regarding its dirty and potentially harmful water — spent ten days in solitary confinement late March for attempting to distribute bottled water he had purchased to fellow prisoners. Coleman, who has been working alongside prisoner advocates to help quell…

  • Boston Celebrates International Worker’s Day

    Boston Celebrates International Worker’s Day

    On May 1, a crowd of about two hundred activists and workers gathered on Boston Common for May Day, also known as International Worker’s Day. The holiday honors workers and demands better working conditions, livable wages, and more workers’ rights.The Boston rally was organized by Boston Food for Activists, Cosecha Boston, Green Rainbow Party Boston,…

  • Q&A with Tray Johns, Advocate for Incarcerated Women

    Tray Johns is head of Fedfam4life, a sisterhood to restore incarcerated women and former prisoners, focusing on women of color and LGBT women. Her knowledge of the law, her ability to stand up for her rights and for those of her sisters and brothers is astounding. It’s fitting, since as a child Johns dreamed of…

  • Poor People’s Campaign Plans 40 Days of Non-Violent Protest

    More than 450 people met in Quincy for the Mass. Meeting of the Massachusetts Poor People’s Campaign on Friday, April 6. Savina Martin, a long time activist who is one of three co-chairs of the Massachusetts Poor People’s Campaign, opened up the meeting, calling on people to raise their voices “to say enough is enough…

  • Rising Rents Continue to Put Pressure on Boston Tenants

    The spring real estate market is under way, and the cost of rent in Boston is on the rise again in one of the country’s most expensive markets, raising the question of how people making average or below average incomes will continue to live in the city. According to Brielle Browne, Massachusetts and Connecticut realtor…

  • The Poor People’s Campaign: Putting Humanity Before Politics

    The Poor People’s Campaign: Putting Humanity Before Politics

    Before Martin Luther King’s tragic death 50 years ago this month, he had begun organizing what he would call the Poor People’s Campaign. The focus was to bring economic justice to all poor people regardless of their race. Though the campaign continued after King’s death, it never had the success he envisioned. Now 50 years…

  • Cap on State Assistance for Children Challenged

    Members of the Ways and Means House Committee were met with dozens of advocates during a session on Friday, March 16, at the Massachusetts State House who were in favor of lifting the welfare cap on kids conceived after families start to receive benefits. Current law denies assistance of up to $100 a month per…

  • Mass. Advocates for Children: Fighting for the Rights of Young Students

    Readers, imagine yourself waiting for the most opulent being in your life: your child. As the yellow bus approaches, you feel calm, ready to hear your child’s stories of the day. The bus stops, you see your child. As your little one runs to your arms, you ask the same question you have asked a…