Ed Childs: On Historic Somerville For Palestine Divestment Victory

Ed Childs: Talk to Somerville For Palestine on election night, November 4, 2025:

We and Somerville are stronger for our campaign .

History has shown us what we have done. Not the history given by CBS or Fox. When I was in Belfast, I saw every time they took on colonialism they took the struggle to the population, though agitation, education, and organization. When the population is in the heart of the struggle, it propels the struggle forward, strong and better organized, and makes it harder for the colonial forces to push back.

The civil rights movement with Rosa Parks, Ella Baker, and MLK leading the way always brought the population into every struggle through education, agitation, and organization. That is what kept the Civil Rights Movement strong and sustainable. The anti-apartheid movement in Southern Africa used the same strategy to bring the struggle to the population as does the Palestinian struggle.

Our campaign has taken the same historical path as all these great struggles through our demonstrations, mass distributions, meetings, and especially our door-knocking. We brought the Somerville population into this struggle. We are stronger, and Somerville is stronger because of this campaign.

We started S4P because our children were being traumatized from seeing the genocide and not able to do anything about it. Today, our children are not only being traumatized by the genocide but are also being traumatized by the physical and psychological attacks by ICE on their family or classmates.

Today, our children see children in Gaza starving and either their own family or neighbors going without food. The children and the Somerville population sense the reality that the cuts to their healthcare, housing, and education are going to pay for the Pentagon’s war and are to benefit Wall Street.

The Somerville population is looking at S4P that organized them to stop genocide to be allies in their battle for stable housing, healthcare, education, and food. S4P gives our children and community a hope that their strength will grow and their battles will be won.

Our opponents will try to stop us, but the population of Somerville knows that we not only have solidarity and organization but also courage.

Ed Childs is a longtime Somerville, Massachusetts resident and a retired UNITE HERE Local 1 Chief Steward having worked at Harvard as a Cook for decades.