“Listen, my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.
On the eighteenth of April in Seventy-Five,
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.”

So began Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1861, writing in the Atlantic Monthly, to a nation that was torn and troubled. In 1775, Paul Revere rode through the night to warn the farmers outside of Boston that the British were coming. Thereby, Longfellow claims, Revere inspired a suffering country to slip the chains of its master and demand independence. His message is timely even today. With a “jobless recovery”, we must join together to build a sustainable economy with jobs for all. A voice “of defiance, not of fear.” There is nothing we cannot do if we rise together.

“For borne of the night-wind of the past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beat of that steed
And the midnight-message of Paul Revere.”