The vigil begins: 24 hours for Fair Food…

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After nine days on the road, the Now Is The Time Tour reaches Lakeland, settles in for 24-hour vigil!

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Note from the media team: What follows is a quick dispatch from the front recapping yesterday’s action at the all-night vigil outside the Southgate Publix in Lakeland, Fl.  After a long night for the documentation crew, our offering today will be a little thinner than usual, a sort of series of postcards from the first day of the vigil, with more to come tomorrow after today’s action has wrapped up (there is, at least, a very fine video included toward the end of today’s update).  We trust you understand… /head hits keyboard/…

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Following a wildly successful week of marches, vigils, pickets, and community meetings across its 2,800 mile route, the Now Is the Time Tour landed yesterday afternoon at its final destination — the landmark Southgate Publix in the heart of Lakeland, Florida — and settled in for a 24-hour vigil. 

Arriving in Lakeland just ahead of the vigil’s 2:00 start time, the tour crew immediately set about unloading the bus…

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… gathering the musicians…

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… setting the agenda…

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… and getting geared up for the marathon that awaited them.

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First order of business, a quick picket to announce the start of the day:

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But this day would be a marathon, not a sprint…

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… and so soon the tour crew — along with a couple of hundred allies that would join them over the course of the day — settled in for the long haul.  Participants employed any number of strategies to pass the time, from playing some spirited games of chess…

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… to taking a leisurely lunch…

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… double checking the day’s plans…

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… and even making up some new games just for the occasion…

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But as the sun set, the time would come for one of the day’s key events: a manager delegation led by several of the CIW’s closest Florida faith allies.  Throughout the day, a team of Publix management representatives was holding its own vigil across the ample parking lot, huddling and watching the CIW crew…

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… working on police relations…

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… and, as always, filming virtually every minute of the action…

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But when the manager delegation team (below) gathered at the vigil site to prepare for the visit (the delegation included, clockwise from left, Father Richard Walsh, Vicar General of the Diocese of Orlando, Gerardo Reyes of the CIW, the Rev. Dr. Bernice Powell Jackson, First United Church of  Tampa, the Rev. Roy Terry, United Methodist Church of Naples, the Rev. Lindsay Comstock, Executive Director of National Farm Worker Ministry, the Rev. Russell Meyer, Executive Director of the Florida Council of Churches, the Rev. Robert Moses, Pastor of St. David’s Episcopal Church of Lakeland, and Claire Comiskey of Interfaith Action of Southwest Florida)…

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… the Publix team leaped into action…

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… laying the groundwork for a tension-filled visit.  In what would prove to be the dramatic peak of the first day of the vigil, Publix management summoned the police to stand at the ready as the clergy delegation made its way to the parking lot, and patrol cars raced to the place where the two groups would meet.  With the police hovering and the Publix team frostier than the cold of Atlanta two nights earlier…

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… dialogue was at a minimum.   And when the delegation of clergy stopped to pray before wrapping up…

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… the tension grew thicker still.  After finishing the prayer, the delegation withdrew and returned to the vigil to report on the visit to those gathered there.  Some of the highlights of their report are captured in today’s video:

 

The evening continued, highlighted by the arrival of still more vigil participants from all parts of Florida, including dozens of more CIW members from Immokalee, strawberry workers from nearby Wauchula, and members of the community group We Count from Homestead.  As each group arrived to swell the vigil’s ranks, their members were treated to a hero’s welcome:

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Check back soon for more from today’s action as the 24-hr vigil continues, culminating in this afternoon’s march through historic downtown Lakeland!