LAWRENCE, Massachusetts—Against the faded brick facade of the Everett Mill, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) officially began her presidential bid this past weekend. And she did so by looking backwards.
Warren told a story of collective action, of workers uniting behind common goals and bridging language and ethnicity barriers for the sake of fair wages, overtime pay, and the right to join a union. She spoke at the site of the famous “Bread and Roses” strike, which was led by textile workers on a cold January day in 1912 and stretched into March. Addressing a crowd of 3,500 on a blustery day where the wind occasionally rattled a large American flag draped over rusting metal, the senator drew parallels from that moment to the one confronting the country currently.