The space was small so the formation was tight: a dozen or fifteen construction-type men with signs marching in a small circle and chanting: What do we want? When do we want it? There was big poster with something like 'D Cammi', whatever that meant; a labor action in front of the state office building on Beacon Hill. The sidewalk was busy with people showing up for work. The buildings all around were tall and quiet.
Who was protesting and what? I don't know. There's construction nearby; maybe it was related to that. If it was a conversation, who was listening?
I reflected, as I zoomed by, on how the average worker in America has only their own individual voice, one that makes little headway against the massed blasts from the enterprise of which the worker is a part. The small voice of one person might as well be silence, except for its effect on the speaker to relieve or frustrate.
How can conversation happen in these circumstances? There are channels, there are lines of authority, blare the trumpets of the top; that's where conversation is allowed to happen: up to us, down to you, inside the system.
But these men, about whose cause I know nothing, were speaking with a voice of multiplied power, and not from the bottom of the dumb-waiter shaft.
I couldn't find any information online, but I was witness. There was a voice; let it be heard.
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