This Memorial day, United workers will mark the launch of our Right to Health Campaign with a memorial at Springfield hospital to remember and honor our fallen soldiers in this ever growing war on the poor.

Springfield Hospital is the site of Maryland’s Potter’s field, a mass grave for the unidentified and “unclaimed” cremains of those impoverished Marylanders who were too poor to afford a funeral. According to Maryland law, a family has 72-hours to claim their relative's body and provide for their funerary services. If they cannot afford to claim their loved one, the body is taken by the Anatomy Board and sold in whole or in parts as a cadaver for medical research. Their final resting spot is a mass grave at Springfield Hospital, where a single anonymous plaque marks their contribution to science, but makes no mention of the reality that so many did not consent, did not have a choice.

Since our early days of organizing we have understood the many ways that poverty affects our overall health. Poverty robs us, our families, and our communities of freedom, dignity, and life itself. By honoring and remembering our family and friends, we are claiming that we, the poor and dispossessed, are not anonymous, disposable, or useful only insofar as we produce profit for this system. We are calling out the immorality of poverty in one of the richest states in the richest country in the world and exposing its death-dealing implications.

Posted by Todd Cherkis on April 16, 2024