From Cell to Cell, Jailed Minnesota Unionists Sang of Freedom

Yesterday the federal government arrested and indicted 15 people, many of them union activists, on conspiracy charges over the protests and massive strike against ICE in Minnesota last winter. Two of those indicted had just returned from the Labor Notes Conference, where Emmett Doyle’s prize-winning song “Hold the Line” was also sung (see box). The Minnesota 15 include union carpenters, electricians, teachers, university staff, and nursing home workers. Donate here to support their legal defense. —Editors.

When I got to my cell after they took me, I did not know who else was targeted in the sweep. I saw one person I knew, and then was put into a cell alone.

Not knowing what else to do to pass the time, I began singing “Fields of Athenry.” When I was done with that, I sang “The Ballad of Joe McDonnell,” “Bold Robert Emmet,” “Jim Jones in Botany Bay,” and “Our Lads in Crumlin Jail.”

I was halfway through "The Town I Loved So Well," about to choke up thinking about Metro Surge and "with their tanks and their guns, oh my God what have they done, to the town I loved so well," when I heard a shout down the hallway:

"Play ‘Dick Blizzard'!"

A chorus of laughter followed, and voices of friends and loved ones. Suddenly, I wasn't alone anymore.

After a short time, they processed me and put me in a cell with some dearly beloved friends of mine. One of them, an older friend whose wisdom has always been a source of strength in trying times, turned to me and asked if I could help him remember all the verses to “Solidarity Forever.” Within minutes, all the cells up and down the hall were singing the full, original IWW version, with increasing gusto.

Not wanting to stop the fun, I led an English-language rendition of “Bella Ciao.” As we got done with it, I heard a voice from the direction of the cell I had been held in alone, earlier. It was a gruff, loud and enthusiastic singing voice I had heard at many late nights at the Circle of Song, singing “Bella Ciao” back at us in Italian. Then, hearing our feeble attempts to remember the Spanish words to “A Las Barricadas,” he sang it in Spanish.

"Sing ‘Men Behind the Wire,’" he shouted down the hall at us. So we sang the anti-ICE version of the old Irish republican prisoner support song, which we'd written during Metro Surge.

That's how I discovered who else was in jail with us yesterday.

We whistled “Colonel Bogey's March” on our way to the hearing.

Emmett Doyle is a union carpenter and one of the 15 codefendants in a federal indictment against ICE protesters in Minnesota. Donate here to support their legal defense.