“RFK MEMORIAL POVERTY TOUR: A TOUR FOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE” KICKS OFF IN IMMOKALEE!

 


AFL-CIO President John Sweeney joined long-time friend Mrs. Ethel Kennedy on the first stop of the “Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Poverty Tour: A Tour for Social and Economic Justice” this Sunday, April 23, in Immokalee.

The tour marked the 40th anniversary of Robert Kennedy’s now famous “poverty tour”, which included a stop in Delano, CA, with Cesar Chavez and the farmworker movement there, as well as visits to marginalized communities in the Mississippi Delta and Appalachia. The original tour helped shape many Americans’ views on poverty.


The 2006 Tour started appropriately in Immokalee, one of the country’s poorest towns and home to the 2003 RFK Human Rights Award Laureates — Romeo Ramirez (third from left), Lucas Benitez, and Julia Gabriel of the . The human rights award was given in recognition of the CIW’s fight to combat modern-day slavery and to end sweatshops in the fields of Florida where much of America’s food is grown and picked.

Here, as the day’s activies begin, Mr. Sweeney and Mrs. Kennedy participate in an exchange with CIW leaders about the history and roots of the CIW’s organizing efforts.


Stuart Acuff, AFL-CIO Organizing Director, enjoying the exchange…

Following the talk, Tour participants and local human rights activists ate a quick lunch prepared by CIW members…

… before heading out on a walking tour of the farmworker community, accompanied by a healthy contingent of local and national press (and international press, actually, with this day marking the first-ever appearance of the Agence France Presse on Immokalee’s shores…)

The Tour got a pretty good picture of life in Immokalee, including the many walking paths of a town where the vast majority of residents don’t own cars. Paths like the one above, leading from the central parking lot in town where people find work in the morning to a several block area where farmworker housing is concentrated, criss-cross the town, engineered by decades of people walking back and forth from home to work.

The Tour arrived at a labor camp located a few blocks from CIW headquarters…

… where CIW members living at the camp — in the process of packing their possessions for the move north for the summer picking season, as the Immokalee season comes to a close — invited Tour participants and the press inside to see their home (described as about the “size of a small bathroom” by one local reporter).

Mr. Sweeney and Mrs. Kennedy didn’t wait to leave the camp to denounce the conditions they saw there to the press…


… But the CIW’s own media — Radio Conciencia, the CIW’s widly popular community radio stationgot the exclusive live interview with the visitors, who gamely braved the heat of the un-air-conditioned station to speak directly with Radio Conciencia’s thousands of listeners.


Then it was on to the rally, where hundreds of workers joined the Tour participants for a rousing town-hall meeting.

CIW members shared stories of their struggles with the visitors…

… while the crowd moved between thoughtful attentiveness…

… and repeated applause interrupting speakers as they pledged their support to the Campaign for Fair Food and the CIW’s efforts to convince McDonald’s and the Chipotle Mexican Grill (a national chain also controlled by McDonald’s) to use their influence to improve wages and working conditions in the fields where their tomatoes are picked.

The rally ended with the signing of two oversized letters to McDonald’s and Chipotle…

… calling for the fast-food giants to: 1) Pay a fairer price for their tomatoes so that workers can earn a fairer wage, 2) Ensure farmworker participation in the advancement of their own rights, and 3) Guarantee transparency in their supply chain.

Mrs. Kennedy led the crowd with three closing cheers of “Coalicion… Presente!” (the CIW’s rallying cry)…


… and the day ended with an open-air mass for the workers and allies gathered, celebrated by several local priests, including Immokalee’s own Father Hector Rubin (left) and Father Joseph Clifford, of St. Columbkille Catholic Church of Ft. Myers, a long-time friend and close ally of the CIW and struggle for justice in Immokalee.

Our thanks go out to everyone who helped make the day such a great success, and we look forward to working together in the future in the battle for Fair Food. Coalicion… Presente!