Jimmy Kelly has been a social justice activist and Union advocate for decades. He founded the  Western Workers Labor Heritage Festival to honor Martin Luther King Jr. birthday since it became a federal holiday in 1986. He has sung on picket lines for dozens of unions in California,  the Pacific Northwest, with the Hormel Strikers in Minnesota, with airline strikers in St Louis and Pittsburgh, and with coal miners in Carmel, California. He performed at national solidarity marches on the Las Vegas Strip and on the Mall in Washington, DC.

He was in 17 performances of the  labor  musical “Let the  Eagle Fly” about the founding of the United Farm Workers in which he was described as  a “Good Bad Guy” for his portrayal of  the grower who refused to negotiate with Cesar Chavez during the Delano grape strike. 

His political activism led him to coordinate the No on 226 campaign for the Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties’ Labor Councils, also running phone banks for passing the millionaires’ tax ”Yes on prop 25, No on Prop 32,” and phone banking for Proposition  98. 

Kelly has served as a delegate to the Santa Cruz, Monterey Bay, and the South Bay Central Labor Council,  and is currently a delegate for Alameda Central Labor Council. He coordinated the labor studies program at  San Jose City College for 10 years. Kelly earned his Masters in Public Administration from the National Labor College at the George Meaney Center for Labor Studies  in Silver Springs, Maryland.  Kelly is the recipient of the Joe Hill award from the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Labor Image award from the Los Angeles Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO. Kelly currently performs Celtic music with the “Kelly O’Davey Duo” and is the leader of the “S.O.S. the Songs of Solidarity” band.  He is a member of the American Federation of Musicians, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the Sierra Club and the American Civil Liberties Union. He is available for rallies, demonstrations, memorial tributes, fundraisers for workers and human rights organizations, for progressive social and climate justice causes, and picket lines. Contact him by calling or texting (408) 597-7649.