It is the simple, radical idea that an injury to one is the concern of all. Solidarity is what turns scattered individuals into a movement, and it gave its name to a union that helped bring down an empire.
Solidarity is unity and mutual support among people based on shared interests or a common cause, the sense that we are in this together and that one person's struggle is everyone's. It comes from the Latin solidus, meaning whole or solid.
It is the glue of every movement. Individuals are weak against concentrated power; united, they are formidable. Solidarity is what makes a strike hold, a boycott bite, a march swell. The old labor motto captures it: an injury to one is an injury to all.
Its power is historic and literal. In Poland in 1980, a trade union named Solidarity, Solidarno..., grew into a mass movement of millions that challenged and ultimately helped topple communist rule, showing how the principle could shake an empire.
It demands something hard: standing with others even when you could safely stay silent. True solidarity means supporting a cause that may not directly benefit you, because you recognize a shared stake in justice. That willingness is what separates a movement from a crowd.
