Mobilization for Farmworker Freedom March begins in earnest in Immokalee…
Meanwhile… Nation magazine editor pens definitive article on Modern-Day Slavery Museum!
Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel published an article on the Modern-Day Slavery Museum this past Sunday, entitled simply “Modern Slavery,” that provides the best, most extensive analysis yet on the remarkably powerful mobile exhibit. Here’s an excerpt:
 “… All of these exhibits allow CIW to make the arguments that they have been pushing for over 15 years very tangible. It’s one thing to tell people about the conditions that persist in the fields. It’s an entirely different thing to show it inside of a rolling replica of the most recently discovered slavery truck where people were held captive.
‘The museum has made it possible to lay out our argument about slavery from A to Z, in a sort of irrefutable package of completely documented and totally unimpeachable facts,’ says CIW staff member Greg Asbed. ‘And when you can see the whole history and evolution of four hundred years of forced labor in Florida’s fields assembled in one place, then all the false assumptions about what drives modern-day slavery just fall away. It’s not workers’ immigration status today, or a few rogue bosses, but the fact that farmworkers have always been Florida’s poorest, most powerless workers. Poverty and powerlessness is the one constant that runs like a thread through all the history. In short, you see, it’s not about who’s on the job today. It’s about the job itself.'” read more |
The article, which was also picked up by NPR, ends with a call for the museum to add one more stop before wrapping up its tour:
| “… When the museum has finished traveling Florida, I hope legislators will take an interest in bringing it to the National Mall. It’s time to make the fight against modern slavery part of our national consciousness.” read more |
Don’t miss this excellent article. Click here to read it in its entirety, and if you live in Florida and haven’t seen the museum yet, go to the museum website now for its itinerary over the next two weeks… and go!
Meanwhile, enjoy this photo gallery from this past weekend’s Year of the Worker party in Immokalee!