Solidarity Means Showing Up

Labor Day, Doris Miller, and the Work Before Us

Labor Day should be a celebration. It is a day to recognize the working people who built this country and the labor movement that organized to make workplaces safer, wages fairer, weekends possible, and working families more secure. Here in Virginia Beach, the Virginia Beach Democratic Committee is proud to stand with organized labor and the working people of Hampton Roads—not simply on Labor Day, but every day.

There is a lesson in the history of organized labor that reaches far beyond any contract or workplace. None of those gains happened because people in positions of power suddenly recognized that something was wrong. Working people organized, stood together, and acted. When people stand together, organize, and act, they have the power to change things.

That lesson feels especially important right now.

We are being reminded that progress does not defend itself. Hard-won rights can be challenged. Institutions can fail the people who served them. Opportunity earned through merit can be denied. Even honors earned through extraordinary sacrifice can be treated as though they belong to whoever temporarily holds power.

Doris “Dorie” Miller understood service and sacrifice. He was a Black mess attendant serving in a segregated Navy when Pearl Harbor came under attack. Miller helped wounded shipmates and, despite having no formal training on the weapon, manned an anti-aircraft gun against the attacking aircraft. He became the first Black American awarded the Navy Cross. He later gave his life serving our country.

In 2020, the Navy announced that CVN-81 would bear Miller's name. It would be the first aircraft carrier named for both an enlisted sailor and a Black American. Now the Navy is reportedly considering removing Miller's name from the future carrier being built here in Hampton Roads, with President Donald Trump discussed as a possible namesake. No final decision has been announced.

No. Some lines are worth holding.

This is about more than the name painted on the stern of a ship. It is about what we choose to honor and what those choices tell the next generation about us. Congress has recognized longstanding Navy naming traditions honoring naval and military heroes and Americans who made distinguished contributions to our national security. Doris Miller doesn't merely fit that tradition. He embodies it.

Miller served in a Navy that limited what a Black sailor could even aspire to become. Yet when his country came under attack, those restrictions did not limit his courage. He acted. He protected his shipmates. He fought. And he ultimately gave his life in service to the United States.

I recently submitted a letter to the editor of The Virginian-Pilot making my position plain. Whether it is ultimately published is less important than the principle that compelled me to write it:

Donald Trump has the presidency. Doris Miller earned the carrier.

Service and Merit Should Mean Something

There is another part of this story that we should not separate from the first.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has intervened in the military's senior-officer promotion process, blocking or delaying officers who had already progressed through their services' professional selection processes. Reporting has found women and minority officers disproportionately represented among those affected.

Think about what that means in human terms. These are Americans who raised their hands to serve. They built careers over decades. They deployed. They led people. Their records were evaluated by their peers and senior leaders. They competed within an extraordinarily demanding system and made the cut.

Service should matter. Merit should matter. The integrity of the process should matter.

That should matter especially here in Hampton Roads.

Rep. Jen Kiggans is a Navy veteran representing one of America's most consequential military communities. She has demonstrated that she is willing to challenge Pentagon leadership on military issues when she believes intervention is warranted. She has also argued publicly that America cannot afford to lose experienced military leaders—writing this summer that “America cannot surge experience.”

On that principle, I agree with her.

But principles mean most when applying them is difficult. I have not found comparable public advocacy from our representative for the officers removed from these promotion lists without a publicly stated performance-based reason. If experience matters, defend experienced leaders. If merit matters, defend a merit-based process. If readiness matters, demand answers when qualified people are denied advancement.

Leadership cannot depend on whose dignity happens to be convenient to defend.

Solidarity Is a Verb

That brings me back to Labor Day, because the labor movement has already taught us what comes next.

Workers did not win safer workplaces because people appreciated the problem. They organized. Working families did not gain better wages, collective bargaining rights, weekends, workplace protections, and greater economic security because powerful institutions eventually decided to be generous. People stood together and demanded change.

The same lesson runs throughout our history. Civil rights did not advance because Americans merely acknowledged injustice. Veterans did not secure the benefits they earned because someone eventually decided they deserved them. Progress happened because people organized around a shared conviction that things could—and should—be better.

That is solidarity.

And solidarity is a verb.

It means more than expressing sympathy for someone else's struggle. It means understanding that the dignity of the worker, the servicemember, the veteran, the immigrant, the family trying to get ahead, and the neighbor whose experience differs from our own are connected by something larger: the belief that every American deserves a fair opportunity to contribute, succeed, and be treated with dignity.

That is why organized labor matters. That is why Doris Miller matters. That is why servicemembers who earned advancement through merit matter.

And that is why elections matter.

Don't Just Appreciate the Problem. Help Fix It.

There is plenty wrong with American politics today. We can spend another election describing it to one another, becoming increasingly sophisticated in our outrage, and waiting for someone else to fix it.

Or we can organize.

We don't need more people who appreciate the problem. We need people committed to fixing it.

That means talking with our neighbors and listening to them. It means volunteering. It means standing with working people. It means protecting the right to vote and helping someone participate who otherwise might not. And ultimately, it means electing leaders prepared to turn our values into results.

Here in Virginia Beach, VBDC has endorsed ten candidates for City Council and School Board who have made the decision to step forward and serve this community. Our School Board candidates are Chris Lewis, Alveta Green, Antoinette Kahan, Natalie Bray, Suzanne Berman, and Betty Spencer. Our City Council candidates are Janet Byrnes, Worth Remick, Joash Schulman, and Jennifer Rouse.

They come from different districts, backgrounds, and experiences. What unites them is a willingness to do something increasingly important: step forward rather than stand back and complain.

Help them win.

And in Virginia's 2nd Congressional District, we have another choice. We can return Elaine Luria to Congress and help elect a Democratic House majority capable of exercising meaningful oversight, protecting military readiness, standing with working families, defending merit and opportunity, and restoring accountability where it belongs.

Winning elections, however, cannot be our ultimate objective. Using the power entrusted to us to make people's lives better is.

That distinction matters. Elections are how we acquire the ability to act. Governing responsibly is what we are supposed to do with it.

Progress Doesn't Defend Itself

So this Labor Day, celebrate.

Celebrate the union members who stood together when standing together carried real personal risk. Celebrate generations of working people whose labor built our neighborhoods, our economy, and our country. Celebrate the progress they won—not just for themselves, but for millions of Americans they would never meet.

Then remember how they did it.

They organized. They stood together. They acted. And they left something better for the people who came after them.

That is the responsibility before us now.

Solidarity isn't something we say. It is something we practice.

Democracy isn't something we simply inherit. It is something we maintain.

Progress isn't something we admire from a distance.

Progress doesn't defend itself. People do.

Doris Miller did his part. Generations of working people did theirs. Countless Americans before us stood together, organized, sacrificed, and left us something worth defending.

Now it is our turn.

— Sean Monteiro
Chair, Virginia Beach Democratic Committee