Angie Nixon, a Democratic Socialists of America member running for U.S. Senate in Florida, told a congregation at a Miami church that “we have nothing to lose but our chains,” a phrase she has previously credited to Assata Shakur, a convicted cop killer who fled the country and once appeared on the FBI’s most wanted terrorists list.
In the Miami appearance, Nixon did not attribute the line to Shakur, unlike past speeches where she named her directly. “Our chains are them telling us that we don’t have enough money for health care for all when they’re spending a billion dollars on a ballroom you’ll never get to dance in,” Nixon told the church. “Our chains are the fact that they are spending money to defeat ballot initiatives that you paid into that should have gone toward health care for low-income kids.”
She continued, “Our chains are the fact that they are closing public schools so that they can subsidize their for-profit private school education for the billionaires and the millionaires, but they’re closing schools in our neighborhood. Those are our chains.”
Nixon closed with the same phrasing she has used before: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love and protect one another. We have nothing to lose. We have nothing to lose, y’all. We have absolutely nothing to lose but our chains.”
Previous attribution to Shakur
At an earlier event, Nixon delivered a nearly identical speech but explicitly named her source. “I’m gonna open this up for questions, but I’m gonna leave y’all with these words of a famous freedom fighter before we open it up: Assata Shakur,” she said at the time, before repeating the line: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love and protect one another. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
In that earlier speech, she described modern-day “chains” as spending on a White House ballroom and what she called “attacks” on voting rights, before again quoting Shakur directly.
Distancing from DSA
Nixon has recently sought to downplay her ties to the Democratic Socialists of America even though she remains an active member. She has accused her general election opponent, Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL), of lying by pointing out Nixon’s DSA membership.
“Ashley Moody knows that I’m not a socialist,” Nixon said, adding that she joined DSA because she agrees with the group on “fighting for adequate public housing, as well as fighting for quality health care, as well as making sure that we are getting our veterans off the street, taking big money out of politics.”
“The Democratic Party is a big tent,” she said.
Nixon’s platform includes “cradle-to-career” public education with tuition-free public college and trade school, mass amnesty for immigrants, and ending what she calls “mass incarceration.”
