Outside the Walmart in Secaucus, New Jersey, on Black Friday 2013, Harris sat down in the street, a boilermaker on one side of him, a postal worker on the other, behind a banner reading “WALMART = POVERTY.” Joining the rally were Occupy activists from New York and New Jersey; fast-food workers who had also been organizing with the Fight for $15; restaurant workers; and the Rude Mechanical Orchestra marching band. Thirteen people were arrested in front of that Walmart for civil disobedience; nearly a hundred more were arrested around the country. As the police cuffed Harris’s hands behind his back, he shot me a giant grin through the crowd.

“I’ve never felt more complete in my life,” he told me later. “I’m glad that I’m here, because now I have twenty-four hours a day, and weekends if I choose to work them, to go out and organize. And not against Walmart, but for the workers. There’s a difference, because this is not an ‘Us Against Walmart’ thing; this is ‘Walmart Against Us,’ and we’re trying our best to protect ourselves.” As for his dismissal, he shrugged, saying, “We knew that was a possibility, but we didn’t care, because change had to happen. Major change only happens as a result of someone losing something. Just like in the civil rights movement and the gay rights movement. People lost their lives and were imprisoned, but all those negative things actually transitioned into positive changes.”