From Protest to Party: Celebrating victory at U of Michigan!…

4 for Fair Food Tour rolls into Ann Arbor, spends a special Sunday with Michigan allies celebrating success in Boot the Braids Campaign at UM!

After more than a week on the road – and on the heels of an emotionally-charged march and protest at OSU in Columbus, Ohio – the bus and its many satellite vehicles carrying workers from Immokalee and their allies on the 4 for Fair Food Tour arrived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Sunday, the site of the first major victory in the campus-based Boot the Braids Campaign.

In true CIW style, however, the celebration couldn’t begin before getting in a spirited, Saturday evening picket at a Wendy’s restaurant in nearby Ypsilanti!

Though several Michiganders assured us that we were lucky to have timed our visit with a stretch of unseasonably warm weather, the Florida-based tour crew was not having it:

Between the bitter cold that made huddling together in place more attractive than walking the line…

… and the whipping winds, that turned boycott flags into unpredictable, flapping hazards…

… the weather was a challenge, but not one the veteran crew couldn’t overcome:


Of course, it didn’t hurt that the local allies seemed entirely unperturbed by the cold or the wind…

Following the protest we were kindly hosted for dinner and a Havdalah service by our friends at Temple Beth Emeth…

And on Sunday it was time to celebrate!

The day began at the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation in Ann Arbor, with a service led by the Pastor Joseph Summers…

… whose stirring sermon included a reading directly from Friday’s big New York Times article on the Wendy’s Boycott!

Following the service, the church hosted a high-spirited celebration of last month’s news that Wendy’s would not be returning to the University of Michigan campus following the successful actions by students on campus and Fair Food allies in the community of Ann Arbor calling on the university administration to cut its ties with Wendy’s until the fast-food giant joins the Fair Food Program.  The campaign in Ann Arbor resulted not only in the first major campus “Boot the Braids” victory, but also set the precedent for cities taking a stand in favor of Fair Food, as the Ann Arbor City Council’s resolution in support of the campaign sparked similarly successful resolutions by the city councils of Carrboro, NC, and Gainesville, FL (the final stop on the 4 for Fair Food Tour!).

The festivities began with a favorite of all the kids (big and small) on the tour – a victory piñata!…

… which was quickly dispatched with by the enthusiastic whacks of the tour’s (smaller) kids:

Then it was time for the three key ingredients to any great celebration: inspiring words, music, and food…

First up was Cynthia Price of Washtenaw Solidarity with Farmworkers, a key ally in the successful organizing efforts in Ann Arbor.  She thanked the CIW for “changing the conversation around social justice” and lifted up the tireless efforts of the University of Michigan students who fought for over four years alongside community members to let Wendy’s know it isn’t welcome at UM until it puts human rights on the menu.

Gerardo Reyes of the CIW followed with a moving talk about the difference between Wendy’s raw economic power, on the one hand, and the ultimately greater power of the human bonds formed in a partnership between determined workers and committed consumer allies like that at the heart of the Campaign for Fair Food:

That is the most beautiful thing that can exist: Workers sharing their dream with consumers, and consumers supporting the idea that human beings should not be robbed of their dignity at their work place.  Wendy’s doesn’t have a chance against us.  The power that they have is cold, it’s structural, and it’s full of greed.  And this power is a dead kind of power.  We will all as workers continue with this struggle, until Wendy’s understands that the power we have built is rooted in love.  This power and this love cannot be resisted by any force.  As workers, we know that were going to win.  We’ve already seen the changes in the fields:  the elimination of sexual abuse, of modern day slavery. 

The moment will arrive that we will have not just Wendy’s, but Kroger, and other corporations, and show the world that you can do business without having to crucify the dignity of workers and exploit them in the process.

Thank you for all the work you’ve done to win this victory at the University of Michigan.  Wendy’s doesn’t know it yet, but they already lost. They will eventually see the error of their ways, and become partners.  That will be possible thanks to all of you.

Music was next on the agenda, which of course meant none other than Raymond Tepotchli Mejia Perkins, aka Pedrito Fernandez, the youngest mariachi ever to come out of Immokalee…

… who, towering over the speaker, treated the crowd to three of his greatest hits.

Raymond was followed by Los Jarochicanos, a Son Jarocho group who came all the way from Chicago to join the celebration…

Finally, just before the tour crew loaded up onto the bus to head to our next stop – Atlanta, Georgia – it was time for cake, a delicious victory cake, of course!

Thanks, again, go out to all of the incredible students, leaders of faith, and community allies in Michigan who made the groundbreaking Boot the Braids victory possible.  We know that although it was the first win in the nationwide campaign to kick Wendy’s off campus, it has set an invaluable precedent and will most certainly not be the last.

Stay tuned in the days ahead for a round up of media on the Fair Food Program and Wendy’s Boycott, and for updates from Atlanta and Gainesville, coming soon to a website near you!