Attorney Jim Carrigan
Editor’s note: Attorney Jim Carrigan has been a vital member of the Lynn community for more than 50 years, working tirelessly for the people who need him most. To honor him, the New Lynn Coalition presented a tribute to the social justice advocate last week.
Carrigan served as a state representative and state senator for the Essex District, and in 1971 went to Mississippi to train newly enfranchised African-American activists to run for political office. Carrigan helped candidates in New York and Virginia who were endorsed by Sen. Robert F. Kennedy; and helped Sen. Kennedy in California in the 1968 Democratic presidential primary. He assisted Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in his campaigns in Massachusetts and did advance work for both brothers.
Carrigan grew up in West Lynn — poor, he says — and has long been a voice for those who need one.
Carrigan has served as president of the boards of LEO Inc., the Greater Lynn YMCA, Greater Lynn Senior Services, and Lynn Community Health Center; and was an executive board member of the Lynn Business Partnership. He also hosts “The American Dream,” a public policy cable TV program for Lynn Community Television.
Carrigan is a member of the Massachusetts Bar and successfully represented the Lynn Teachers Union before the United States Supreme Court. He practices law with his wife, Attorney Anne Gugino Carrigan, and his daughter, Attorney Lisa Carrigan Bacik.
Carrigan has spent his career concentrating on Social Security Disability, workers’ compensation, and plaintiffs’ accident cases.
“(We) need more people like Jim. He’s the person you want to say, ‘Actually, I want to be like him,’” state Rep. Peter Capano said.
Officials attending the event included former Congressman John Tierney; Lynn Mayor Jared Nicholson; former state Sen. and Lynn Mayor Thomas McGee; state Sen. Brendan Crighton; state Reps Jenny Armini, Dan Cahill, and Capano; Lynn City Council President Jay Walsh; and several Lynn city councilors and School Committee members.
The following is an edited version of Carrigan’s speech at the Coalition event.
I learned about giving to the poor at St. Mary’s Grammar School in Lynn.
I was reminded about my first-grade teacher when I saw a story about her 50th anniversary as a nun.
I was in her first class. She was 21 years old at the time.
In those days, St. Mary’s had separate classrooms for the boys and girls.
Guess how many boys were in Sister Mildred Julie’s class? 99. Amazingly, I don’t remember any turmoil or disruptions in that first-grade class.
What I do remember, though, is that this beautiful woman was constantly urging us to donate our pennies and nickels to the poor. Not just the poor in Lynn (most of us in her class were poor), but she was urging us to address worldwide poverty. She was constantly telling us that poor people in China and Africa needed our help.
I didn’t know it at the time, but my fifth-grade nun set the stage for me to get into politics. Sister Bernadette Marie encouraged us to learn about history and government.
Because of her fascination with those issues, she developed in me a life-long interest in those subjects.
I have many family members who would tell you that my spatial relationship skills are subpar and that I am even clumsy.
I won’t even talk about the many grill fires — because I think it is the grill’s fault, not mine. But I will give one example.
My wife, Anne, bought a new SUV and it had one of those buttons in the back. All you had to do was push the button and the trunk cover would come down and close. So, I decided to try it. As it started down, I remember thinking, “This is amazing” — just before it hit me in the head. Let me put it this way, my family never bought me a do-it-yourself kit.
I tell that story to demonstrate what a great teacher Sister Bernadette Marie was. She actually got me interested in Eli Whitney and the invention of the cotton gin. Now why would I care?
But her passion for history and ability to explain it excited me so that I even developed an interest in the cotton gin, even though I never owned one.
Eli Whitney was an American inventor who developed the idea of Interchangeable parts. I would start off with two questions: What does interchangeable mean? And what is a part?
Sister Bernadette Marie taught us about the founding of America, about presidents, and about the 19th-century economy. Most important, she spent a lot of time on immigration and the Statue of Liberty — a gift from the French to the American people. It is the first thing you see if you come to America through Ellis Island in New York.
Added to the base is part of a poem by Emma Lazarus, which reads:
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses and your homeless yearning to breathe free.”
I was never a huddled mass, but I can relate to the rest of it.
I remember walking home from my fifth-grade class that day and thinking what a wonderful country we live in.
People from all over the world do not come here to commit crime, they do not come here to steal our jobs, nor do they come here to live off the government.
So why do people leave their home country? No one wants to leave their native country, friends, customs, and native language. Yes, they yearn to be free, but they also want other things. Almost all want to flee violence, poverty, and hunger. Our ancestors wanted to eat.
In Ireland, the potato crops failed. Although there was other food available, it was not shared with Irish Catholics. It was sold to other countries.
The Irish also wanted to own property, practice their own religion, vote, and enjoy all the other freedoms that we enjoy in America.
So where does the prejudice come from? We are all born beautiful babies.
Why do we change? Growing up, some of us children learned this ditty:
“Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”
It’s not true. It wasn’t true then and it is not true now. Names do hurt.
Before the violence and the dehumanization comes the name calling. We’ve all heard them.
We needn’t look far to find numerous examples of hurtful prejudice.
Lynn’s Harry MacCabe spells his name differently from his ancestors. Why? His grandfather couldn’t get a job because he was Irish. So, Harry’s grandmother had the spelling changed from the Irish “McCabe” to “MacCabe.”
The bigots burned down a convent full of Catholic nuns because they were Catholic nuns.
Karen LeBlanc, my assistant for 42 years, speaks of her Italian mother’s problems when her mother was 6 years old. Her mother, who was born in America, mispronounced the word “vegetable” because of her Italian accent. A supervisor put a dunce cap on her, and locked her in a closet for the rest of the day. Karen’s mother never spoke Italian after that.
My aunt Mike, an Irish woman, fell in love with an Italian man. They became engaged, her Irish family would not let her marry an Italian, and his Italian family would not let him marry an Irish woman. Imagine that.
Last year, the Greater Lynn Bar Association organized a forum on prejudice. One of our participants was a young Chinese woman. She gave her background in China and the United States. She was obviously a nice person and an accomplished woman, and then in a soft voice said: “Why do people hate the Chinese?”
The hurtful incidents and violence are endless. Dr. Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, who masked his pain with humor one time by saying “It’s not about the grapes, it’s about people.” Sacco and Vanzetti, Frederick Douglass.
Antisemitism has increased dramatically in the last year. According to the FBI, there were 8,800 incidents of harassment and violence directed against Jews.
So what do we do about all this?
Continue the loyalty, love, and generosity of Lynn’s people.
When you hear or see racial or religious intolerance, stand up and speak up for justice.
We are not incapable simply because of the color of our skin or our accents.
Some of us are less capable because of a physical or mental problem.
Some of us are less capable because we grew up poor and didn’t learn the values that others learned. We may not be as smart, we may not be as motivated, we may not understand spatial relations.
So, for that special group of people I urge that we exercise tolerance and kindness. The best example is Mary Magdalene. Jesus forgave her for her sins but the mob still wanted to kill her.
Look around this room and you can find wisdom everywhere – and I do. I frequently tap my friend Ed Calnan.
That great Lynn organization called Pathways was formerly called Operation Bootstrap. It educates people and literally helps them pull themselves up by their bootstraps. And when that happens, people should be proud of themselves. That’s the essence of the American Dream.
But not everyone can achieve that goal. And sometimes, prejudice blocks that goal. Ed talks about the ladder concept. Some people climb the ladder, but then selfishly pull the ladder up so other people can’t do so.
This year, the American Bar Association chose Voices of Democracy as its theme for Law Day. On Memorial Day, we honored veterans who died in war to defend democracy. I am sure that many brave people were fighting for the right to vote. So, we can honor veterans on Memorial Day and we can honor veterans on Veterans Day, but most important, we can vow to vote on election day. Become informed, stay informed, and vote.
I want to introduce you to another continuing success story.
Mrs. Virginia Barton was the president of the Lynn NAACP, founder and former president of the Lynn Community Minority Cultural Center, and served on many nonprofit boards of directors. Most often, she was the only woman and the only African American on those boards.
Mrs. Barton and I formed a group to recruit and train people of color, women, and others to serve on nonprofit boards of directors. It has been quite successful and several people have gone on to serve as members and officers on nonprofit boards.
We had our first meeting at the Greater Lynn YMCA in Lynn. Her son Buzzy drove his mother to each meeting, and she showed up with her gavel and chaired the meetings.
We were trying to make people understand that being a member of a board of directors was not a mystery.
This year we will have a new Board Training and Recruitment program in the fall, at the Lynn Museum. It will be chaired by Birgitta Damon, CEO of LEO, who has done so before, and Harry MacCabe from the Lynn Housing Authority.
The honorary chair will be Virginia Barton’s daughter, Patricia Barton.
As we have in the past, we will recruit people of color, women, and others to participate in the training. We will have community leaders such as state Rep. Jenny Armini to provide insight.
We have several other people who have committed to help us and we could use more volunteers. If you are interested in doing so, please let us know.
Equally important, we have nonprofit agencies that are seeking new members, so this will not be an exercise in futility.
Several years ago, I introduced Charlie Gaeta, executive director of the Lynn Housing Authority, to a seminar with mayors. I said then that his brain was as big as his heart. That is still true, and he hires a staff that employs those same values. The beneficiaries are the people served by the agency and the people of Lynn. Dignity and respect are hallmarks of Charlie and the Lynn Housing Authority.
So, like my grandfather’s smile, I will take those beautiful words inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty to my grave.
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, and your homeless yearning to breathe free.
