We need to sing

In my American Studies class at San Jose State I was giving the lecture on labor organizing in the Thirties.  Our reading for the day was “Waiting for Lefty,” a play written for easy production in union halls and church basements, and we saw a brief clip of the the anti-union violence at the auto assembly plants in Detroit.  

I decided that a good way to end the lecture would be to have the students sing “Solidarity Forever.”  At the end of the song we would all yell, “Strike, Strike, Strike.”  I don’t believe a single student in the class of 90 had ever been a union member.  Most of the students who took American studies were engineering and science majors; the course satisfied quite a few GE requirements and was especially popular with non-liberal arts majors.

I had no idea if the students would join in.  It occurred to me that I might be standing in front of the class singing a solo and humiliate myself while the students smirked.  That didn’t happen.  Ninety students belted out “Solidarity Forever” and then yelled “Strike, Strike, Strike” in a way that would have made John L. Lewis proud.

Why do people sing in church?  Why do people sing the “Star Spangled Banner?”  Because singing unites people, makes them feel as one, gives them inspiration.  We sang “The Banks are Made of Marble” on the bus on the way to the labor rally in East Stroudsburg this spring, and after the initial feeling of self-consciousness, we got into it and felt pretty good.

We need some singers.