This Saturday, August 28th, 10:30 AM: March With Jesse and the UAW in Detroit

[annm4peace]

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latest-news/jesse-jackson-lead-detroit-march

By Micki Steele / Detroit News

Nearly 50 years after the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the Rev. Jesse Jackson hopes to advance a new agenda that cuts across class -- not racial -- lines with a form of protest honed by earlier generations.

Joined by United Auto Workers President Bob King, elected officials and community activists, Jackson plans a march at 10:30 a.m. Saturday in front of the UAW-Ford National Programs Center near Hart Plaza to build awareness of a new workers' initiative for "jobs, justice and peace."

"Mass marches give visibility to a challenge, and they provide hope," Jackson said.

Jackson and his team have traveled across southern and central Michigan by bus since Sunday, making stops at auto plants, universities, churches and UAW offices from Battle Creek to Saginaw to mobilize people for the march.

"Each of these areas has their own sense of preoccupation with the plant they lost or the job they lost, so the march creates a connection," he said.

Officials of Jackson's Chicago-based Rainbow PUSH Coalition wouldn't say how many marchers they're expecting, but they said this week's bus tour has helped garner support.

"There's so much injustice for working people, and there's no loud voice talking about the injustices to save working families," King said. "Having a march will bring a lot of attention to the issues of unfairness and also solutions."

The march commemorates the 47th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington on Aug. 28, 1963. In June of that year, the civil rights leader delivered a version of the now-famous address at Detroit's Walk to Freedom demonstration down Woodward Avenue.

The goal of the new "equality and jobs" campaign is to encourage voters, especially in Detroit, where the Aug. 3 primary election turnout rate was 15 percent, to use their right to vote "to create a political order that's committed to investing in urban centers," said D. Alexander Bullock, senior pastor of Highland Park's Greater St. Matthew Baptist Church.

"The Detroit vote determines state outcomes," Jackson said.

Detroit may be the epicenter of the nation's disintegrating manufacturing base, but the city is also seeded with possibilities, including a broad-based labor agenda that tackles fair trade, workers' rights and wages, and engages the community, Jackson said.

"Unions have put forth the most effort to fight for balanced trade," he said. "The American worker can compete with the Chinese worker, but can't compete with slave wages."

Warren Whatley, a University of Michigan economics and African-American studies professor, said labor's involvement is crucial to creating a national jobs policy.

"To mount a mass protest, you have to have resources and people," Whatley said. "When it's a class-based issue, it's a little more difficult. You're not going to get the capitalists out there in the streets protesting with the workers."

The relationship between labor and civil rights dates to the 1920s, when the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was recognized by the American Federation of Labor, and later when UAW President Walter Reuther helped coordinate the 1963 Detroit march.

Increased voter turnout and pressure on Washington, D.C., could lead to changes in federal spending policies to better fund job training or forgive student loan interest and stimulate the economy, Jackson said.

"We have a plan for Afghanistan and Iraq," Jackson said. "We would do better to prioritize rebuilding America."