The Bread and Roses Heritage Festival is a celebration of the ethnic diversity and labor history of Lawrence, Ma. This annual festival is celebrated on Labor Day in order to honor the most significant event in Lawrence's history: the 1912 Bread and Roses Strike. We memorialize the event with a variety of music and dance, poetry and drama, ethnic food, historical demonstrations, and walking and trolley tours, all on or starting from Lawrence's Common. We also host organizations continuing the struggle for social justice today.
SPECIAL EVENTS
OPENING CEREMONY AT THE BERNSTEIN STAGE (11:30AM-11:45AM)
Remarks by Bread and Roses Heritage Committee board members and our community partners at the Lawrence Public Library, plus a special musical tribute featuring Already Dead.
HISTORIC TROLLEY TOURS (12:00-4:30PM)
2 TOURS IN SPANISH 2PM AND 3PM
FREE 50 minute tour of Lawrence. Leaves every 30 mins starting with the first trolley at 12pm and the last trolley at 4:30 pm. Tickets at the Friends of the Lawrence Heritage State Park Table.
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HISTORIC WALKING TOURS (1:00 AND 3:00PM)
FREE - meet at the Strikers Monument on the Common across from City Hall.
Walking tours will depart at 1:00pm, and 3:00pm.
Held at the Teoli Stage. Honoring Mary and Antonio Guerrero. featuring The Merrimack Valley Youth Choir at YDO singing "Lift Me Up"
BREAD AND PUPPET THEATER (5:00PM-6:00PM)
The Bread and Puppet Theater was founded in 1963 by Peter Schumann on New York City’s Lower East Side. Besides rod-puppet and hand puppet shows for children, the concerns of the first productions were rents, rats, police, and other problems of the neighborhood. More complex theater pieces followed, in which sculpture, music, dance and language were equal partners. The puppets grew bigger and bigger. Annual presentations for Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and Memorial Day often included children and adults from the community as participants. Many performances were done in the street. During the Vietnam War, Bread and puppet staged block-long processions and pageants involving hundreds of people.
