International Women’s Day has long been a highlight in the Campaign for Fair Food’s annual organizing calendar.  Year after year after year, workers from Immokalee and their Fair Food allies have marked March 8th with creative and deeply moving reflections and actions. 

2019 would prove to be no exception. 

Again this year, a new chapter was added to that growing history of CIW International Women’s Day actions – an action that would fit squarely in what our colleagues at the National Economic and Social Rights Institute (NESRI) described as the nation’s tradition of joyous yet “confrontational and fractious organizing marches and protests, driven by grassroots energy” in their own thoughtful reflection on International Women’s Day yesterday (read more of NESRI’s statement here). 

On Friday, hundreds of protesters – including workers from Immokalee and their families, Ohio State University students, and Fair Food allies from across the northeast and midwest – braved snow flurries and bitter cold to gather in Columbus, Ohio, where they marched to support the efforts of OSU students to “Boot the Braids” from the flagship university’s campus.  Friday’s march and protest followed Thursday’s sit-in at OSU President Michael Drake’s office by 25 students, faculty, staff, and community members, during which President Drake refused to meet – or even speak – with students calling for OSU to cut the university’s contract with Wendy’s until the Ohio-based fast-food chain joins the Fair Food Program.  The campaign at OSU gained momentum in the wake of last month’s news that Wendy’s would not be returning to the University of Michigan campus following successful student and community protests there. 

Today’s report includes photos and video from a day jam-packed with events (a day so full of action, in fact, that we don’t even have space in today’s post to touch on two remarkable articles published yesterday on the Campaign for Fair Food and the Fair Food Program, one that took up nearly the entire front page of the New York Times Business section, the other a powerful op/ed by Time’s Up leader and Fair Food ally Alyssa Milano.  We will return to those articles next week!).

International Women’s Day provides a prism for conversation on women’s rights as human rights…

Friday’s activities at OSU began bright and early with a morning reflection – held in the sanctuary (below) of the Summit United Methodist Church, our longtime ally and gracious host for so many CIW visits to Columbus – on the Fair Food Program and the rights of women farmworkers in our food system.

Participants were invited to fill two picking buckets with their thoughts, written on bricks and on smooth stones, respectively, on both the burdens that women continue to face at work and at home, as well as the abiding values that drive the ongoing struggle for gender equality and justice today. The video below captures some of the moments of what was a moving start to the day.

But, of course, no CIW reflection would be complete without its corresponding action, so it wasn’t long before the 4 for Fair Food crew packed up its protest art and hit the streets!

Hundreds march through Columbus streets to President Drake’s office on OSU campus…

Friday’s march began at Goodale Park, where protesters gathered for an opening rally before heading out on the 3-mile march.

Marchers both big…

… and small…

… gathered up their signs, dressed warmly from head to toe against the cold, and prepared for the long day of action ahead. Meanwhile, others were already hard at work getting the day’s message out through the many members of the media covering the march:

After several rousing speeches – including one by Magali Licolli (below) of Venceremos, a growing movement of poultry workers in Arkansas coming together to implement their own vision of Worker-driven Social Responsibility in that industry so deeply in need of long-overdue reforms (check out the video at the top of the post for an excerpt from Magali’s inspiring words):

… the marchers lined up and began the 3-mile march to OSU campus:

Student contingents traveled to Columbus for the day’s big action from as far away as New York City…

… and Providence, Rhode Island…

… demonstrating the increasing strength of the Wendy’s Boycott on campuses across the country.  

Meanwhile, countless longtime allies also joined the CIW to celebrate this International Women’s Day, including Rabbi Jessica Shimberg of Little Minyan, one of T’ruah’s ever-growing cohort of “Tomato Rabbis” dedicated to solidarity with farmworkers’ efforts to expand the protections of the Fair Food Program throughout the US agricultural industry (Rabbi Shimberg also fasted alongside Immokalee workers in last-year’s five-day Freedom Fast in NYC!):

… and, of course, Pedro Lopez, animator extraordinaire of virtually every major CIW action since the start of the Campaign for Fair Food, pictured here doing his thing from the back of the sound truck at the head of yesterday’s march:

As the marchers continued to make their way down Columbus’ busy High Street to the OSU campus…

… their energy and enthusiasm proved contagious, bringing supportive onlookers pouring out of local businesses…

… and bringing construction work to a halt on multiple occasions along the 3-mile route, as workers stopped in their tracks and pulled out their phones to record the festive action:

The marchers’ dogged – and friendly – flyering was so effective…

… that it even caused one young man (below) to step out of a Wendy’s restaurant along the march route, hamburger in hand, to engage in a conversation with an OSU student leader about the high cost of exploitation behind cheap fast-food:

Finally, the marchers turned onto the OSU campus on their way to the Administration building…

… where they made their message to OSU President Michael Drake loud…

… and clear…

… that it was time to cut the contract with Wendy’s until Wendy’s joins the Fair Food Program:

But nothing sent that message more powerfully than the silent laying of flowers that closed yesterday’s dramatic action.  It began with children from Immokalee distributing hundreds of red carnations to OSU’s sit-in participants from March 7th, who carried the carnations throughout the march as a symbol of the strength of farmworker women, and then ultimately, to all of the gathered marchers…

… and continued for nearly half an hour of silent witness…

… as groups of three…

… and four…

… made their way to the plaza leading into the Administration building…

… and left a growing carpet of red behind on the bricks…

… until that carpet stretched to the steps and the path below.

As the marchers wrapped up a long day of action and made their many ways home from the OSU campus, the flowers they left behind composed a poignant visual statement of the countless indignities and sacrifices farmworker women have suffered silently for generations in the fields to put food on all our tables.  

But farmworkers in Immokalee, and increasingly around the country, are no longer willing to remain silent.  And with yesterday’s action in Columbus in celebration of International Women’s Day, the marchers left little doubt that the trail of exploitation and abuse they seek to end still leads today to the doorstep of OSU’s President Michael Drake, who continues to stand with Wendy’s on the wrong side of history, and against the unprecedented advances for all farmworkers’ human rights, women and men, achieved every day on farms under the Fair Food Program. 

That’s it for today’s report.  Check back soon for more from the 4 for Fair Food Tour…