The final leg of the tour started in Vero Beach, where the crew met for two hours with a United Church of Christ youth group that drew kids from across the state.

The night before our presentation, the youth group had done an exercise in which the evening’s meal was portioned out according to the color of the wrist band each participant was provided upon arrival at the retreat center. While some received a luxurious meal, others were left with almost nothing at all, based solely upon the arbitrary designation of their wrist band color. Needless to say, the exercise provoked some strong feelings and discussion — and couldn’t have prepared the young people better for the next day’s presentation by farmworkers, the people who do some of this country’s toughest, most dangerous work to put food on our tables, yet all too often don’t make enough to put food on their own families’ tables…

The kids were enthralled by the workers’ presentation, and when CIW members invited a volunteer to try to lift the 32-lb bucket, virtually the whole audience of nearly 100 jumped to their feet for a chance at the experience!

Then it was down Hwy 1 to Ft. Lauderdale, where Day 8’s action began with a march, led by yet another beautifully executed banner by local Fair Food allies. 

The march passed right on by a KFC restaurant along the way, the marchers happy to count KFC among the Yum Brands companies honoring the Taco Bell agreement. But while KFC is part of the solution to farmworker poverty…

… BK? Well, not so much…

The march reached BK and set up camp, this member of South Florida’s own “Raging Grannies” spelling out her position in no uncertain terms for the customers and commuters who would witness the Ft. Lauderdale protest that day.

While this CIW member had a special message for Burger King — and for Burger King’s CEO John Chidsey, in particular, who during a speech at his alma mater Davidson College earlier in the week apparently called farmworker poverty a “myth” and thanked a student who asked him about the CIW campaign for the opportunity to debunk that myth.

Now, there are only two explanations for Mr. Chidsey’s remarkable obtuseness: either he actually believes that farmworkers are not poor, which is inexplicable given his station in life and the opportunities, education, and access to information he enjoys (like the 2001 US Department of Labor report to Congress citing farmworkers’ “low wages and sub-poverty annual earnings,” and calling farmworkers “a labor force in significant economic distress,” or the Miami Herald and the Palm Beach Post, both of which have done extensive exposes on the human rights abuses in Florida’s fields), or he’s just cynically deploying an argument he knows to be untrue in defense of what is really just a pittance to his multi-billion dollar company… which is probably even worse.

Most Floridians, however, blessed with either fewer millions to defend or a greater sense of innate curiosity, jump at the opportunity to learn more about the lives and struggle of the state’s worst-paid, least-protected workers.

On Sunday morning, the final day of the 2007 Florida Tour, hundreds of South Floridians had just that opportunity, as the tour crew split up and visited several churches, including St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic Church, pictured here above, where parishioners lined up for information, buttons, and post cards from the Campaign for Fair Food, and promised to join farmworkers on November 30th outside BK headquarters for the opportunity to share some of that information with Mr. Chidsey himself (and with Goldman Sachs, one of the three unimaginably rich private equity firms that effectively own Burger King).

While another team from the crew traveled to Homestead to meet with “We Count,” a day laborers’ organization where no one had to be convinced that farmworkers are poor, as many of those present had themselves worked in the fields in the past.

Rather, the discussion at We Count was focused on the forces driving workers’ poverty, again using a popular education drawing from past years of Immokalee organizing to help spark the group reflection. The CIW and We Count shared organizing strategies — including the use of low-power radio, like the CIW’s Radio Conciencia — for building community among low-wage, immigrant workers. We Count told CIW members that we can count on them to be there on November 30th!

Which brings us to the final action of the 2007 Florida Tour… an unforgettable action, in many ways, as the storm clouds gathering in the background of this picture suggest. In some ways, however, the Miami protest was very much like the other actions of the 2007 Tour. In Miami, as in other cities, allies came decked out in t-shirts of their own design (this one incorporating the chant often heard at CIW rallies: “No more slaves, pay a living wage!”), and carrying home-made signs, making every action along the route a colorful and spirited experience.

And, it wouldn’t be a Campaign for Fair Food protest if the other side weren’t out busily documenting the whole thing for their records. It seems, however, that our outing of the Men In Khakis at the Day 6 Orlando protest (scroll down to the Day 6 & 7 report below if that reference is confusing) convinced Burger King to ditch the MIK’s for some in-house surveillance help…

But this protest would be distinguished for its weather, which began as a drizzle…

… and steadily strengthened…

… to become a driving rain…

… that ended as a straight out downpour. 

None of which dampened the protesters’ spirits, but instead filled them with a sense of unity and an even stronger determination to stand their ground and be heard in the battle for Fair Food.

Our signs, however, were another matter…

The sudden storm did dampen much of the exquisite protest art prepared over the course of the 2007 Florida Tour, just in time to retire the signs and prepare new ones for the November March on Burger King.

One familiar piece reached the end of its road under the Miami rain, the papier mache King’s head worn at protests from Naples to Ft. Lauderdale. The tour crew paid the fallen King its proper respects, providing it with a dignified funeral with full honors…

… before disposing of it in a nearby recycling bin, perhaps to return one day as a victory sign in a celebration of Burger King’s belated but inevitable decision to join Yum Brands and McDonald’s in support of a fair wage and humane labor conditions in the fields where their tomatoes are picked.

To help us hasten the day when that celebration graces the streets of Burger King’s hometown of Miami, join us this November 30th for the historic march on Burger King headquarters. Click here for more information on the full weekend of events.

Our sincerest thanks goes out to all of those who welcomed us into their homes, their churches, and their communities over the past nine days. Without your help, the 2007 Florida Tour would not have been possible. See you in November!

DAY 6 & 7 – ORLANDO, DELAND

In Immokalee, the CIW uses images like the drawing above to help spark reflections in community meetings on the issues that affect the lives of our members. We brought some of those images along with us on the Florida Tour to share with communities along the way, including this drawing (shown from a discussion with allies following the Orlando protest) that captures the current moment in the Campaign for Fair Food. The drawing depicts Taco Bell and McDonald’s, on the one hand, joining with the CIW in an accord to advance the human rights of workers in the fields, while Burger King, on the other, its head firmly buried in the sand, declares “I don’t see any labor problems in the fields where my tomatoes are picked!”

That drawing came to life in Deland on Day 7, as this photo from the protest that day attests, thanks to the local Burger King manager and his willfully ignorant assistants.

Stick with us through the update to learn how this manager’s letter ended up torn and tossed in the streets by local Burger King management determined, like their corporate leaders in Miami, to remain blind to the inhumane labor conditions in the fields where the food they sell every day is harvested.

Our report begins on a decidedly more upbeat note, however… Before leaving Tallahassee for Orlando, the tour crew received some truly good news from our long-time allies at the Florida Catholic Conference, who received us with not only a delicious lunch but with the letter above. It is a letter, dated October 1st, from the Archbishop of Miami, Archbishop Favalora, to Burger King CEO John Chidsey, entitled, “Re: Request from Bishops of Florida Urging Cooperation with CIW.” It reads, in part:

“We are encouraged by the recent actions of Yum Brands, Inc. to expand their agreement for Taco Bell with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to include all the restaurants under their corporate control as well as the recent CIW agreement with McDonald’s. The dignity of the human person, the right to adequate pay for the necessities of life and the right of workers to organize and bargain are tenets of Catholic Social Teaching embraced in these agreements. We urge you to work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and join those in the fast food community who have acknowledged the need for justice and fairness for those who provide manual labor in the fields.” Read the full letter here

Also, before leaving our state capital, the crew did one more round of classroom presentations, here showing a video of the PBS “Now” report on the Campaign for Fair Food to a couple of hundred FSU students.

The reception by the FSU community — students and faculty — was remarkably warm. As has been the case with our visits to campuses across the state, our stay in Tallahassee will surely result in a strong turnout for the march in November.

From Tallahassee, the tour headed back down the road to Orlando, arriving in town just in time for another lively Burger King protest.

And as always, the Immokalee crew was backed by a healthy turnout of local allies…

… who helped carry our message on the picket line…

… and in the streets, where drivers fighting rush hour traffic were able to take time usually lost to the simmering nothingness of commuter life to think, if just for a moment, about the labor abuses behind the food we eat, and about an alternative to the endless exploitation of our country’s farmworkers.

Of course, when you start talking about making fast-food fair food, inevitably the fast-food giants break out the “men in khakis” (click here and scroll down a few frames for a flashback to an earlier brush with these ubiquitous men) — a seemingly bottomless pool of middle-aged men, dressed invariably in the same unassuming uniform, dispatched from some mysterious little office with a branch in every major city, tasked with taking pictures of the farmworker protest…

… and of all the dangerous anarchists calling for the King’s head… Hope our dear friend in khaki won approval from his bosses back at the mysterious office with his clever pictures.

The following morning, as part of the crew hit the road again for Deland to prepare the ground for yet another protest in that quiet college town, others stayed behind in the Orlando area (Winter Park, to be exact) for a visit to St. Margaret Mary Catholic School.

The school has a storied history of alliance with the CIW and the Campaign for Fair Food, so storied, in fact, that it inspired a chapter in a text book on Catholic Social Teaching (shown here held by Sister Rosemary who wrote the chapter) used in Catholic schools across the country!

St. Margaret Mary embraced the Taco Bell boycott early on in the campaign, even removing Taco Bell food from the school cafeteria. Here the lessons of that solidarity are passed on to two more students today, who not only got to participate in a presentation by CIW members, but also could read of their own school’s proud participation in the struggle for farm labor justice in the chapter entitled “A Penny More” (the barely legible text highlighted in yellow above). 

Next, it was on to Deland, where, in the course of that afternoon’s protest at a local Burger King, the CIW’s manager’s letter would be, as seen in the photo at the top of this update, so rudely dispatched in Deland’s rainy streets…

Here, two of the leaders of the impressive organizing effort in Deland (an effort that brought students from Stetson University together with community and faith allies, led by the local representatives of National Farm Worker Ministry) hold up a beautiful home-made banner, marking the gathering spot for those brave souls who were so determined to join the action that they ignored a driving rain that fell off and on throughout the afternoon.

And speaking of ignoring things… somehow this CIW member managed to hold an intelligent conversation with a reporter from the Daytona News-Journal while the Exploitation King hovered nearby.

Click here to see the resulting News-Journal article,“Farmworkers protest Burger King tomato pricing.”

Y haz cliq aqui para ver un buen reporte sobre la visita a Deland y la Campaña por Comida Justa que salio en MSN Latino, “Trabajadores agrícolas piden Burger King apoye mejores condiciones laborales”!!

By some miracle, the rain that had darkened the skies above Deland from early morning to early evening stopped falling at the very moment the protest started, and so the forces for Fair Food took to the sidewalk in front of the Burger King with a renewed sense of hope and purpose.

For a special treat, check out the slide show with audio from the Daytona News-Journal of the Deland protest here! 

Like so many others in communities along the Florida Tour trail, the Deland allies (including Rev. Pam Braid, pastor of the New Hope United Church of Christ, shown here on the left, whose church also kindly sponsored dinner following the protest) prepared many great new signs and banners of their own, including this one that so effectively challenged those witnessing the protest to consider the struggle farmworkers face every day.

But… no matter how hard you try to open people’s eyes to the truth of farmworker exploitation behind fast-food, some people just prefer to keep their eyes firmly shut… 

Our Deland allies, however, are not ones to take “No” for an answer, at least not without demanding a second hearing. Seeing the original letter so cruelly tossed aside, these courageous ladies, locking arms with a Student/Farmworker Alliance representative for strength, dismissed fears of a night in the big house for trespassing and pressed the local manager one more time to at least read the letter describing conditions in the fields and the workers’ demands.

Alas, their plucky efforts were to no avail, as the manager, his hands locked behind his back, refused once again to even consider reading the letter. Instead he offered to call the police on the delegation. The Deland natives retreated to the picket line, unsatisfied but unbowed, determined more than ever to get their message to Burger King — by joining the rally in Miami in November outside BK’s headquarters!

Check back tomorrow for the latest updates from the road as the 2007 Florida Tour continues to Vero Beach, West Palm Beach, and Ft. Lauderdale!

Of course, it’s the latter… and we couldn’t help but include both of these unbearably cute pictures, especially when we noticed that in the first photo this young man had his face covered.

As the tour crew made its way to Tallahassee, it arrived just in time for another great Burger King protest, and as each protest has had its own particular charm, this one’s was clearly the participation of a small army of small people with great signs. 

But big people came with some pretty fine (and big) signs of their own, and the protest sent an unmistakable message to thousands of Tallahassee’s residents on one of the capital’s busiest streets smack in the middle of rush hour.

Click here to see the FSU News article on the protest!

And in Tallahassee as in every stop along the way of this tour, the people who joined us for the protest brought energy and excitement that recharged the tour crew for the long road ahead. 

That extra charge would be necessary, as later that evening (after a great meal at FSU’s Methodist campus ministry center) the crew would divide up for several different meetings…

… here tour members speak with students at the Pride Student Union…

… where following the exchange students signed up to start a group around organizing for the March on Burger King’s headquarters in Miami on November 30th. Like students across the state — from Eckerd College in St. Pete to UF in Gainesville — students at FSU are answering the call to join workers from Immokalee for what is sure to be a “November to Remember” in Miami!

If the CIW’s formula of consciousness + commitment= change is in fact a reliable predictor of social change, then we are at least two thirds of the way there…

Early the next morning, it was on to the Capitol building and a visit to the new governor, Governor Charlie Crist. But first, tour members stopped to pay their respects to the CIW’s dear friend and staunch ally in the struggle for farm labor justice, former Governor Jeb Bush, whose portrait hangs near the entrance to the governor’s office. The look on this CIW member’s face says it all as he recalls the days of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Governor Bush on the front lines of the battle for a more modern, more humane agricultural industry in Florida… standing up to the growers’ lobby, laying his political career on the line for principle….. good times…. good times….

Indeed, a friend to the working man like Governor Bush would be hard to replace, but replace him we must, so it was with some trepidation that the tour crew filed into the new governor’s office with hopes of meeting Governor Crist.

Unfortunately, we knew that we didn’t have much of a chance to actually meet the governor, as his scheduler had refused our request for a meeting two weeks earlier, but we thought if we brought a gift we might get a minute or two with our state’s chief executive. And since the receptionist was so nice, our slim hopes of getting a meeting were kept alive a bit longer…

But in the end, Governor Crist didn’t make it out. He did, however, send an aide and a translator, to whom we gave a book we had brought as our gift, signed by all the tour members and inscribed with the following message: “Dear Governor Crist – We hope that reading this book will awaken your interest in our reality and our struggle.”

The book was the new bestseller ” “Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy” by John Bowe, based in large part on the CIW’s work to combat modern-day slavery in Florida’s fields, highlighting the investigation and prosecution of a particularly violent slavery operation based in Lake Placid, Florida.

We reminded the aide that federal prosecutors don’t refer to Florida as “the sunshine state” but as “ground zero for modern-day slavery,” and that we need to work together to not just eradicate slavery, which has given the state such a black eye, but to eliminate the sweatshop conditions so prevalent in the fields that allow slavery and other extreme forms of exploitation to thrive.

The aide thanked us and suggested that we try to get a meeting with the governor through his scheduler…

Check back tomorrow for more from Tallahassee and news from the Florida Tour as it rolls into Orlando!

Meanwhile, don’t miss the FSU News article on the Tallahassee BK protest

And you can see the Orlando Sentinel article on the upcoming actions there by clicking here. 

DAY 5 – GAINESVILLE

On Day 4, the Florida Tour arrived in Gainesville, where University of Florida students joined forces with the tour crew to press their case — and a few protest signs — for Fair Food in a raucous protest at a Burger King located on the UF campus.

Well, let’s see… Start with a handful of professors open enough to alternative ideas like economic justice and human rights to open their classrooms to presentations… 

… mix in a community center like the Civic Media Center dedicated to lifting up the voices of those without access to the mainstream media…

… throw in dinner with a campus faith community, like the Catholic Student Center, where they not only prepare a fine sloppy joe but also open the floor to visitors with a message…

… add just a dash of logo busting analysis (ok, maybe a bit more than a dash…)

… and voila! Students are gathering in the plaza, making art of their own, and preparing for action.

Soon it was time for a few brief words before…

… heading out of the plaza…

… and making our way through the UF community…

… finally arriving at the campus Burger King, ably accompanied, we might add, by a remarkably solicitous campus police officer (on left, in white) — it’s almost as if UF police were making a special effort to seem accommodating… hmmm….

The crowd assembled in front of the restaurant…

… then gathered for speeches by workers from Immokalee…

… and their student allies….

… all with a simple, clear, and powerful, message.

And that message was carried into the Burger King by a delegation of UF students and farmworkers for a meeting with the Burger King manager and a representative of the campus dining services.

The meeting was short, but cordial…

… and then it was back outside for a report to the crowd and plans for a caravan to Miami in November.

Check out the the Independent Florida Alligator article on the UF protest by clicking here!

And don’t miss this GREAT video on Alligator.orgof the protest!!

Check back tomorrow for a report from Day 6 and a visit to Tallahassee as the tour crew stops by the governor’s office for a spell to drop off a copy of the new book on modern-day slavery, “Nobodies“!

DAY 3 – Eckerd College, Tampa

Following a weekend packed with action, Day 3 of the 2007 Florida Tour was decidedly more reflective, as we spent the day with students and young people in and around the Tampa/St. Pete area.

“Futures I Want” is an exercise that an incredible bunch of kids at Tampa’s Multicultural Family Center did not too long ago, where each child drew four things he or she hopes to achieve in life.

The drawing pictured above particularly caught our attention — from the bottom left, moving clockwise, it reads: A bird representing Freedom, a graduate representing Education, a symbol for Peace, and an award entitled “Champion for being Active.”

Like the kids at the Multicultural Family Center, the members of the CIW have our own “Futures We Want,” too. And our formula for building that future is remarkably similar to the vision expressed in the drawing on the wall in Tampa. At the CIW, our formula goes like this:

Consciousness + Commitment = Change

Move the elements around just a bit in the drawing and you have an almost identical equation:

Education + Activism = Peace and Freedom

Maybe it’s true what they say – everything you need to know about life you can learn in kindergarten…

While it wasn’t exactly kindergarten, the Tour Crew did go back to school on Day 3, spending half the day at Eckerd College (site of a famous hunger strike in support of the Taco Bell boycott in April of 2004).

CIW members split up and held presentations in classrooms across the picturesque campus. And the Crew brought a little bit of Immokalee-styleconcientizacion to the halls of higher learning, sharing a drawing (above, perched precariously on the corner of the table…) used in reflections in Immokalee with the students at Eckerd to discuss the current moment in the Campaign for Fair Food.

Then it was time to head outside for a noon-time rally outside the student cafeteria, which caught the attention of Bay News 9, a station that has covered the campaign closely for many years now.

Oddly, at some point in the rally, there it was again, that same strange feeling we had following the protest in Sarasota on Day 2… we all felt it — like a presence… it’s like we’re being followed…

Anyway… From Eckerd it was on to an interview at Spirit Radio, Tampa’s Catholic radio station…

… and then to a two-hour romp through the fields of corporate marketing, farmworker exploitation, and community organizing with the kids at the Multicultural Family Center.

And while corporate marketers do their very best to whittle their target’s attention spans down to nothing, these kids were engaged, excited, and could have probably gone another couple of hours talking about the exploitation behind some of their favorite brands. [Maybe it’s the material, not the attention spans…] After learning about modern-day slavery in nearby Lake Placid and sub-poverty wages everywhere tomatoes are picked, these kids looked at the food they eat with new eyes.

Those popular fast-food logos lost even more of their luster when — following a demonstration by one of the Immokalee crew on the proper technique for lifting a bucket filled with 32 pounds of tomatoes onto your shoulder for the haul to the field truck — …

… some of the older kids tried their hand at the job, much to the amusement of their colleagues…

After making plans with several of the participants to join us in Miami for the march on November 30th, the Tour Crew blew off a little steam with a few hard-fought rounds of foozball. For the record, Meghan’s got skills on the table (much to the chagrin of several of the more vocal, though less skilled, Tour members…).

Day 3 ended with dinner with a group of students from the University of South Florida — yes, those same USF Bulls that are taking the college football polls by storm this season and knocking Florida’s traditional big three out of the top 10 in the process! — affiliated with the campus groups META (Members Empowering True Awareness) and Students for Social Justice, some of whom had family ties to the fields. And again, plans were laid for joining the Tampa caravan to Miami in November.

Sitting with the USF students was like looking into the future of the kids from the Multicultural Center — young people, pursuing their education while remaining active and joining workers in their fight for social justice. For the USF students, the future is now.

See the ABC News story from the Day 2 Sarasota protest here (be sure to check out the three minute video of the story at the bottom of the page!), and check back tomorrow for a report from Day 4, as the Florida Tour continues in Tampa and heads north for Gainesville!

DAY 2 – Venice, Sarasota, St. Petersburg

Day 2 started with visits to churches across the Venice/Sarasota area, with presentations on the Campaign for Fair Food during several services and time between services for face-to-face fellowship.

Here, at Epiphany Cathedral in Venice, the heart of the Diocese of Venice of which Immokalee is a part, the solidarity was, as always, strong and sincere, including a commitment by several of the more adventurous parishioners to join the trek to BK headquarters in Miami this November!

Likewise, other Tour crew members were warmly received at First Presbyterian Church in Sarasota, where workers from Immokalee spoke in several services and shared one-on-one with church members during the aptly titled “From the Field” Mission Fair.

Of course, if it’s a Mini-Tour, there’s got to be an action, and Day 2 came with two very strong actions packed into one afternoon. Here, with a green-eyed King looking on, people gathered for a sunny two-hour picket in Sarasota…

… that grew into a surprisingly large and spirited action, drawing loud support from the street — and from more than a few Burger King customers themselves, who, by the way, had more than enough waiting time at the drive-through window that they were able to not only absorb our message but to show their support, too.

As always, the action brought people together from diverse walks of life, from a strong showing of faith community allies…

… to a large contingent of student and youth supporters, many of whom hailed from nearby New College, rallying to the call at the previous evening’s presentation to join us at the early afternoon protest.

And, of course, the youth contingent was not without its youngest members, the kids whose presence invariably gives our actions a sense of life and hope for a future of unlimited possibilities — a sense that working to build a better, more just world isn’t just a dream, but a duty.

Then kids grow up and get all cynical… like this one, whose friends had crafted their own little message about the campaign and printed up shirts to get their message across. Now that’s some fine art.

Meanwhile the Tour crew went about getting its message out via more traditional channels, despite the apparent disapproval of the local correspondent (he was nice, actually, just a bad picture…).

Finally, we wrapped up the protest and found some much needed shade for a brief rally/planning session, bringing people together around travel plans for November 30th…

… though something didn’t feel right… like we were being watched… oh, it was probably nothing…

Then, it was on to St. Petersburg and a return to the streets — the very same street, in fact, where a couple of hundred St. Petersburg residents joined us for an action during the “Month of Protests” that launched the Taco Bell boycott back in 2001, at a Taco Bell restaurant just down the street from this Burger King. St. Petersburg didn’t disappoint, with another large protest this time to get Burger King to follow Taco Bell’s lead.

Led by Dwight Lawton (above, sporting the old-school CIW t-shirt!), a long-time farmworker ally from St. Petersburg, a delegation from the protest delivered a letter to the restaurant manager, explaining the goals of the campaign and asking the manager to help convey the message to BK Headquarters.

Meanwhile the protesters outside spoke to tens of thousands of listeners across the Tampa/St. Pete area through the much-loved local Pacifica station, WMNF, “Radio Active” 88.5 FM.

As we mentioned in the update from Day 1, the first days of the 2007 Florida Tour brought us back together with many an old friend, and the St. Petersburg action was no exception. The protest provided the Tour crew a chance to catch up with St. Pete area activists and a chance to be graced, once again, by the unparalleled rhetorical skills of Rev. Charles MacKenzie, who was kind enough to help close the St. Pete action with a few words of his own.

The evening ended with a screening of the CIW’s latest video, “¿Y Ahora Que?” (click here to see a low-resolution version of the video and here to order your own free dvd copy now) at a unique local cafe by the name of Cafe Bohemia in downtown St. Petersburg, where they also organized a silent auction with works by area artists to benefit the CIW’s new community center.

The discussion following the film went late into the night, as two communities — Immokalee and St. Petersburg — came together in the hope of ending Florida’s “Harvest of Shame” and building, together, a more humane agricultural industry in this state we both call home.

Check back tomorrow for the Update from Day 3 of the 2007 Tour – Eckerd College and Tampa!

DAY 1 – Naples and Ft. Myers

Don’t adjust your browsers! That is in fact the famous 8-foot tall replica of the Statue of Liberty — holding a tomato bucket under her arm and a tomato aloft in place of her torch — leading the CIW on the two-week long march from Ft. Myers to Orlando in 2000.

The first leg of the 2007 Florida Tour traces the route of that historic march from Ft. Myers to Tampa, and Day 1 of the Tour brought the crew back into contact with a number of long-time allies who fondly remember the march as their first exposure to the CIW and the struggle to end sweatshops in the fields.

Though the statue now lives on as part of the permanent collection at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, it’s clear from our many reunions on Day 1 that the march lives on in the hearts of those old friends who helped carry our message of economic justice to people across the state of Florida so many years ago.

 

Day 1 of the 2007 Florida Tour brought us some new friends, too…

And one thing is clear as we start our first extended tour of Florida in many years — the people of this state still believe in a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. The same state that embraced this nascent farmworker movement so many years ago is still today a state full of people with good hearts and a spirit of solidarity for the workers who toil under Florida’s legendary sun to put food on tables across the country.

So, just as we did in 2000, we set off again on Day 1 of the 2007 Florida Tour from our home corner of the state, Southwest Florida, and we begin this report with the coverage of Day 1 in our local papers linked here below (don’t miss the great photo gallery that accompanies the Naples Daily News article):

• Read the Naples Daily News story (9/30/07)
• Read the Ft. Myers News-Press story (9/30/07)

We started with a lively action in Naples, with a strong showing from our faith community allies, incuding members of St. Monica’s Episcopal Church, St. John the Evangelist Catholic church, and the Unitarian Universalist church of Naples. They were joined by the Lely High School Amesty International chapter and a great new organization of young people coming together around their support for the CIW and the Campaign for Fair Food — dubbed “Wake Up Naples” — who brought with them a powerful new banner that will no doubt be unfurled in front of BK’s headquarters in Miami come November 30th.

The King had his own sharply-worded message as well…

Then, from Naples it was straight up Hwy 41 to Ft. Myers and another action at a local Burger King, where the King had swapped out signs and was awaiting us with his own special flair.

But he wasn’t alone. The people of Ft. Myers showed up in force for an exciting action, asking the question on everyone’s lips — the question for which Burger King has yet to find the right answer.

Of course, tours aren’t only about protest. They’re also about coming together with our allies in “convivencia,” breaking bread together, building the bridges across cultures and communities that make the movement so strong. And that’s what we did with our long-time friends at St. Columbkille Church in Ft. Myers following the protest.

Before heading north up 75, the Tour crew gathered with some of the St. Columbkille allies for a group shot — knowing that we would be seeing many of them again soon in Miami, as plans are already underway for a caravan from St. Columbkille to join the march on November 30th.

As evening fell on Day 1 of the Tour, the crew reached the city of Sarasota for a reception at New College, beginning with some more media work…

… followed by a little more bread-breaking… and wrapping up with a presentation, building momentum for the actions to come on Day 2, as the Tour hit the streets of Sarasota and St. Petersburg. Check back tomorrow for reports from those actions, and from the rest of Day 2 events, including visits to churches and community gatherings along Florida’s Gulf Coast!