A Hymn for a Collective Future

A Collective Future is back on 3/28 at the Boston Labor Conference. Learn how labor and housing justice intersect!

Join us for our next screening of A Collective Future, a local organizing documentary exploring economic solidarity across Boston and Cambridge.

After the film, stick around for a conversation with local worker-owners and union leaders building worker power right here in our communities. The panel will feature leaders from worker-owned co-ops and local unions, including May from Circus Coop Cafe, Alex from the Worker Ownership and Power, Paola, a Coop lawyer, and Marina who is representing the cleaning Coop she cofounded and a long-time CLVU Northside member! Come connect, build coalition, and pick up tools for the work ahead. 🎟 Grab your free tickets here!

Boston Labor Conference

WHEN: 12:45pm March 28, 2026 (during the lunch break)

WHERE: Carpenters Center, 750 Dorchester Ave

Hymn for a Collective Future

Rally chants help channel energy into power, making sure our demands are heard loud and clear. CLVU organizer Antonio, also known as Twice Thou, has been doing exactly that through music, organizing, and community leadership.

Before organizing with CLVU, Antonio built a career as a hip-hop artist and entrepreneur, using music and art to speak out on social issues. In 2011, when his own home was facing foreclosure, he turned to CLVU for support. Music became his sword of public pressure in the fight to save his home.

By using and teaching others CLVU’s organizing strategy of the sword, shield, and offer (public pressure, legal defense, and collective bargaining), Antonio quickly stepped into leadership and mentorship in the fight for housing justice.

Today, he mentors young people, organizes alongside neighbors, and works to reclaim foreclosed homes from banks so they can be returned to former owners at their real market value.

Through the Rally Rhyme below, Antonio calls out systemic injustices from food insecurity and worker exploitation to family separation and displacement while inviting us to build something different: a collective future where communities reclaim what’s ours. A future grounded in democratic decision-making, community-owned housing, cooperative and worker-owned labor, and economic systems that serve people, not profit.

A Rally Rhyme

Written by CLVU organizer, Antonio Ennis

We’re transforming struggle, into community control

If freedom isn’t free, then Unity shouldn’t be sold

Put the city budget, in the hands of the people

This announcement is public, to dismantle the evil

Think beyond just survival, through the power of resistance

We’re bound to break the cycle, if we vow to stay consistent

Poverty stricken, the plot thickens, while we’re preyed upon

Lottery tickets, for housing that should be safe and warm

150 years later, empty promises of reparations

Where’s the 40acres?...where’s the mule?...where’s the civilizations

Protection against harassment, and landlord retaliation

Is education, and the formation, of Tenant Associations

Developer’s greed, is fueled by speculation

Gentrification, genocide and familial separation

Investors seek displacement, by puttin’ an offer on a building

But, the power of the people, can conquer any villain

Since Plymouth Rock landed on us, we’ve been taught resilience

Freezin’ SNAP benefits and youth jobs, is how they Plymouth Rock our children

Government shutdown, ain’t the answer to the crisis

Supplement cuts, now the damages are priceless

Let’s reclaim our economy, resources and democracy

The Sword, The Shield, & The Offer, is the City Life philosophy

Community Land Trusts, Collective ownership

Rent Control is the standard that Massachusetts voters pick

From envisioning to building

Across Massachusetts, working-class families are working two or three jobs and still struggling to afford rent. Wages stay flat while housing prices keep skyrocketing and our communities are paying the price. skyrocketing housing costs.

At CLVU, we believe another future is possible. A collective future where everyone has what they need to live with dignity: food, housing, healthcare, education, meaningful work, and the freedom to live without fear of displacement or deportation.

But that future won’t come from vision alone. It comes from organizing.

Join us at the Boston Labor Conference to connect with neighbors, workers, and organizers building power across our communities. Come share ideas, build solidarity, and strengthen the collective action needed to win a better future for all of us.

📍 Carpenters Center — 750 Dorchester Ave

📅 Saturday, March 28

🎟 Get your free tickets here!