DAY 4: From labor camps to luxury yachts, modern-day slavery to latter-day robber barons, marchers travel across 48 miles, 2 worlds, in quest for farmworker freedom…

Washington Post (AP): “Now workers enjoy the right to complain without fear of retaliation. Workers also have water and shade as part of these agreements,” said Gerardo Reyes Chavez, a coalition official, at the start of the march in Pahokee. “The [Fair Food] program has proven to be the solution, the antidote to the problem of modern day slavery, the problem of sexual assault, and the problems that have always plagued the agricultural industry.”

With Day 4 a wrap, farmworkers and their allies prepare for huge finale of 5-day, 50-mile march. Join us in Palm Beach for the 2-mile final leg of the Build a New World March!

What a day…

Day 4 was both the longest leg of the march to this point, clocking in at just over 13 miles, and in many ways the most dramatic. The Associated Press article on the march, carried today by countless media outlets around the country (and even in the UK), captured the stark gulf between the two worlds of Day 1 and Day 4 of the March to Build a New World. Here are the AP story’s opening paragraphs (from the Washington Post):

Marchers arrive in Palm Beach on Day 4 of the Build a New World March.

The farmworkers said they were marching to highlight the Fair Food Program, which has enlisted companies like McDonald’s, Walmart, Taco Bell and Whole Foods to use their clout with growers to ensure better working conditions and wages for farmworkers. They hoped to use the march to pressure other companies, like Publix, Wendy’s and Kroger, to join the program that started in 2011.

The march began Tuesday from the farming community of Pahokee, one of the poorest in Florida, where the median household income is around $30,000. The march’s launching point was a camp where farmworkers were coerced into working for barely any pay by a labor contractor who was convicted and sentenced last year to almost 10 years in prison. The contractor confiscated the Mexican farmworkers’ passports, demanded exorbitant fees from them and threatened them with deportation or false arrest, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The marchers were on schedule to arrive Saturday in the town of Palm Beach, which has a median household income of almost $169,000 and is lined with the mansions of the rich and famous, including billionaire Nelson Peltz, who is Wendy’s chairman, and former President Donald Trump… (read more)

Yesterday’s march also included a number of special moments, including a surprise visit by longtime friend of the CIW, Archbishop Thomas Wenski of the Archdiocese of Miami, whose message of solidarity ahead of the march was outdone only by his message yesterday from atop the soundtruck — “To all who have the power to say yes, we want them to come over to the land of justice” — delivered outside a Publix store along the march route!

As always, we have all the highlights from Day 4 here below, including the latest march video, two photo galleries, and a round-up of the day’s media. And be sure to check back in tomorrow for the report from Day 5 as we close out the march in Palm Beach!