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Sunday, September 28th, 2003
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2:59a - Next Saturday
"The Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, a cross-country caravan
backed by organized labor and civil rights organizations, was
launched on Sept. 20 in cities around the US. Inspired by the
1961 freedom rides that fought to end segregation in the South,
the caravan features 18 buses departing from 10 cities with
nearly 1,000 immigrants and supporters on board, with the goal of
building a new civil rights movement. The buses will stop in more
than 100 cities to focus on immigrant rights; the riders will
then meet with members of Congress in Washington, DC on Oct. 1
before ending the trip with a mass rally in Queens, New York, on
Oct. 4. [New York Times 9/25/03; AP 9/26/03]."
An immigrant rights‘ movement in this form is news to me. It is very good news. I am of course familiar with the efforts of many wonderful people and organizations to fight discrimination, to educate immigrants about their legal rights, and to stop the violations of those rights that occur daily. I knew of individual struggles, of the fight against INS special registration, against the anti-immigrant measure of the Patriot Act, for the granting of amnesty for undocumented immigrants. I hadn't yet heard of a movement this large and this broad, one with the expressed intention of “building a new civil rights movement.” It is about time.
More information is available here.
I intend to write here more often about the history of migration, about current migration issues, and give some of my thoughts and hopes about the future.
current music: Leysh Nat'arak. Natacha Atlas. Diaspora (4 comments |comment on this)
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