Montgomery and DC

It’s good to be back home, be with Michelle, and sleep in my own bed after 8 days on the road.

We went to Montgomery, Alabama last weekend for the AFT Civil, Human, and Women’s Rights Conference. Hope Coles, Shellye Davis, and Stephanie Johnson, and I joined members from around the country. Stephanie moderated a panel on Healthcare inequities as part of a task force she serve on.
We rallied for Justice on the steps of the capitol, the same place the Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights marches ended.
We made two emotional visits to The Legacy Museum which traces history from slavery to mass incarceration and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice which honors more than 4400 African American men, women, and children who were hanged, burned alive, shot, drowned, and beaten to death by white mobs between 1877 and 1950.

Both visits were profoundly moving.

After Montgomery, it was on to DC for the AFT Planning and Policy Committee and meetings with the American Nurses Association on safe staffing and with my Congressman, Joe Courtney.
Joe has worked hard for the people of Connecticut and the nation. He has also championed workplace safety measures for healthcare and social workers.

Planning meetings are work, but work that needs to be done.
Advocating for safety at work, for safe levels of staffing, for equality in healthcare, for social justice, for the right to teach and the right to care, and for union leadership development takes planning, and supporting the work of our members is important, because our patients, our students and the public and community we serve need us to advocate.

My recent trips to the border and to Montgomery have reinforced this to me.

Angie

My friend Angie Parkinson, is running for town council in East Hartford. The Connecticut AFL-CIO door knocked for her this morning.

l met Angie when we were both delegates to the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
I was a Hilary delegate and she was for Bernie.
As a delegate from a state, you spend the week together and I made a special effort to reach out to Angie because we are both AFT Connecticut members, Angie being a social science teacher with the Colchester Teachers.
Angie was disappointed when Bernie withdrew and I encouraged her to stay involved.

Angie now co-chairs the AFT CT Legislative Action Committee, is a champion for flipping DTCs to the left, serves on town committees, and will soon be a town councilwoman.
She brings energy, passion, and honesty to everything she does. She understands that this is HER town, HER state, HER nation, HER union, HER social movement.
I am proud to call her friend.