Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride - Beginning Sept. 20

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http://www.aflcio.org/aboutaflcio/magazine/0903_iwfr.cfm

Beginning Sept. 20, hundreds of immigrant workers will board buses as part of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride in a massive nationwide event sponsored by the AFL-CIO and affiliated unions and spearheaded by the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees. The new Freedom Ride is modeled after the 1961 Freedom Rides of the U.S. civil rights movement in which student activists from across the country rode buses into the Deep South to challenge segregation on interstate transportation and in bus and train terminals.

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The Freedom Riders—who include documented and undocumented immigrants and union and community allies—will stop in dozens of communities across the country to spotlight the need for immigration reform. With the 2004 elections approaching, the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride also will put immigration issues squarely on the national political agenda while encouraging greater participation by immigrants, whatever their immigration status, in the civic life of the nation.

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State legislators and political leaders across the country have endorsed the ride, including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, the California state legislature and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), an original Freedom Rider.

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On the last legs of their trips, the Freedom Riders will converge in Washington, D.C., in early October, and the workers and their supporters will spend Oct. 2 lobbying members of Congress for immigration law reform. The workers will then travel to New Jersey to attend a reception hosted by Gov. James McGreevey (D) Oct. 3 in Liberty State Park and finish with a massive day-long Celebration of America’s Immigrants in New York’s Flushing Meadows Park Oct. 4.
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