Massive march on final day of 4 for Fair Food Tour swamps “The Swamp” in Gainesville with farmworkers, students, Fair Food activists calling on UF President Kent Fuchs to “Boot the Braids” from Florida’s flagship university until Wendy’s joins the Fair Food Program!
Editorial published in the UF student paper, The Alligator, on the day of the march: “Hopefully, Wendy’s will soon no longer be on campus.”
What a way to wrap up a tour!
On the final day of the five-city, two-week “4 for Fair Food Tour,” nearly 500 protesters – equal parts farmworkers, students, and community members – wove as one through the University of Florida’s picturesque campus in a colorful and boisterous demonstration. They were fed up with the UF administration’s willingness to turn a deaf ear to students’ concerns, calling on UF President Kent Fuchs to cut the university’s contract with Wendy’s, without further delay, until Wendy’s joins fast-food industry leaders McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, Chipotle, and Taco Bell in requiring its tomato suppliers to meet the stringent human rights standards of the Presidential medal-winning Fair Food Program.
The march, recapped beautifully in the 2-minute video below, caught the attention of the press (see coverage from Gainesville’s local NPR station here, and the editorial in The Alligator here) as well as countless bystanders with its powerful message, its eye-catching sea of signs, banners and puppets, and its diverse – and joyous – community of protesters:
It is safe to say that the University of Florida had never seen anything quite like Thursday’s march before. So, in addition to the above video, we have put together an extensive photo report, which follows below. We hope you have a few minutes to pull up a chair and re-live the sights and sensations of what turned out to be a truly memorable action.
One last word before moving on the photo report… Needless to say, the CIW’s sincerest thanks go out to all the allies who worked tirelessly to organize last week’s march, and all the actions of the 4 for Fair Food Tour, from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to Ann Arbor, Michigan. The logistics of housing, feeding, and transporting a busload of souls from Immokalee (two buses, in fact, once the tour hit Gainesville!) on an odyssey covering thousands of miles, from cold climes to warm, with impressive actions and presentations at every stop along the way, cannot be overestimated. And the tour’s conclusion on Thursday in Gainesville would never have been possible without the selfless assistance of innumerable members of the vast – and fast-growing – Fair Food nation. Now safely back home in Immokalee, all of us extend our deepest gratitude to all of you.
Photo Report
On what was truly a perfect day for a march, participants in Thursday’s action began to assemble around noon under the shade of the enormous oaks, and their attendant Spanish moss, at the University of Florida’s Norman Park:
As they prepared to embark on the three-hour long action ahead, some marchers gathered up their flags…
… their banners…
… and their signs…
… putting words to their message for those who would later come across the march in the streets…
… while others, like the team of faith leaders below, huddled to go once more over plans for the march and their own messaging for the rally at the culmination of the action outside Tigert Hall, UF’s administration building.
Following some brief opening remarks, including words of encouragement from one of Gainesville’s elected officials, David Arreola (below, left), who along with his colleagues on the City Commission voted unanimously to pass a resolution in support of the students’ campus campaign just last week…
… it was soon time to hit the road…
… and hit the road they did, with an energy and enthusiasm that would prove to be contagious. [The two pictures and their captions that follow are courtesy of the excellent story on the march by Gainesville’s local NPR station, WUFT]:
As the march made its way out of the park and into the streets, it seemed to stretch into the horizon…
… with an unending stream of creative, hand-made signs along its entire length:
And as the march wound its way through the campus, it seemed to grow…
… so much, in fact, that the planned picket in front of the student union building (below, background), where a Wendy’s restaurant is housed on campus, had to be canceled, as the sheer size of the march would not allow it to fit in the space provided – a bit of news that provided no small amount of good cheer to the marchers!
The march was greeted along its route by strong support and interest. While some students hastily organized a banner drop from an overpass crossing above the march route…
… many bystanders took to their phones to record the march and share it on social media…
… while still more received and read the thousands of flyers distributed along the march route…
… spreading the good news, consumer by consumer, of the Fair Food Program; its unique success in ending sexual harassment and assault, violence and forced labor in the fields; and Wendy’s unconscionable refusal to join the rest of the fast-food industry in opening its tomato supply chain up to the Program’s acclaimed complaint investigation and resolution process and deep-dive audits.
As the march continued to grow…
… testing organizers’ ability to keep track of the expanding count…
… it made its way into the homestretch…
… to its final destination: Tigert Hall, the University of Florida administration building where President Fuchs’ office is housed:
Arriving outside of President Fuchs’ office seemed to bring the best out of the marchers, who, despite the long march in the warm Florida sun, found the strength to turn up the volume…
… to ensure that their message was heard…
… through closed doors and windows…
… inside the halls of power, where a crucial decision hangs in the balance.
As the rally began, the marchers gathered…
… signs and banners and puppets still held high…
… to listen to…
… and to cheer on, a wide range of speaker from across the spectrum of those calling for UF to cut its contract with Wendy’s. [Note: Close readers of this site may recognize this cheering contingent, below, who traveled all the way from the Freedom University in Atlanta to join Thursday’s march in Gainesville and provide some well-received Son Jarocho music during the march and rally!]
Speakers included student representatives from Chispas UF, the UF Student Government, and Boot the Braids UF (from left to right below, Lucas Benitez and Patti Cipollitti of the CIW are joined on the stage by Gianfranco Bello of Chispas, UF Student Senator Maria Espinoza, and Billy Hackett of Boot the Braids UF);…
… faculty representatives from United Faculty of Florida, the UF faculty organization (below, right, UF history professor Paul Ortiz addresses the crowd);
… and, representing the community of Gainesville, faith leaders (below, John Vertigan, the Conference Minister in the Florida Conference and a member of First United Church of Christ, speaks from the steps of the Tigert Hall to the marchers gathered below).
All three sectors of allies in Gainesville – students and faculty on campus, faith leaders, and other members of the community of Gainesville – vowed to continue working together, in a united front, to press President Fuchs to cut the contract with Wendy’s. Plans are already in motion to escalate the campaign both on campus and in the city of Gainesville in the months ahead.
All in all, Thursday’s march at UF will surely be remembered by all who took part in it for years to come. It was a major step forward not only in the campaign to Boot the Braids from the University of Florida, but in the Wendy’s Campaign more broadly. Combined with the precedent-setting victory a the University of Michigan, the march at UF proves just how powerful a carefully-organized campaign – one that reaches beyond the campus and builds bridges between students and the broader community surrounding the school – can be.
Thursday’s march not only leaves the campaign at UF stronger, it actually strengthens the campaigns on Boot the Braids campuses across the country. UM showed the world that victory is possible. UF showed us the road to victory, and the blueprints for building it.
