On the final stop of the 2010 Northeast Tour, the CIW's Modern-Day Slavery Museum set up shop on some prime real estate -- in the parking lot of foodservice giant Compass Group's corporate headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.

While the idea of a farmworker organization joining forces with a major food retail corporation to fight slavery and poverty in the fields might seem unusual -- and, indeed, the Compass stop caught the attention of several members of the local media -- it was not the first time Compass has demonstrated its commitment to the Fair Food agreement it signed just 11 months ago, an agreement that Eric Schlosser called "the greatest victory for farmworkers since Cesar Chavez in the 1970's."

In fact, Compass has been an exemplary partner since signing the agreement last year, working through the many challenges of implementation over the past season in close -- and transparent -- cooperation with the CIW.

But the museum visit wasn't about sending a message to the public or to its suppliers, rather it was an opportunity to educate its own employees about why Compass has made such a wholehearted investment in the goals of Fair Food.

And Compass employees responded, making their way through the museum throughout the day, braving the heat to take advantage of the rare window into conditions in the fields that provide fruits and vegetables to the country's trillion-dollar food industry.

The final stop of the Northeast Tour also provided an opportunity for Cheryl Queen -- Vice President for Communications at Compass Group and one of the driving forces behind Compass' commitment to farm labor justice -- to visit with old friends from the CIW and...

... in the process, receive a personal tour of the museum from Chief Docent (and tireless museum truck driver...) Julia Perkins herself!

In the end, the visit to Compass headquarters was the perfect finish to a remarkably successful museum tour. The final display of the museum itself is a board that presents the solution to the enduring scourge of slavery -- the Campaign for Fair Food, a growing partnership of farmworkers and consumers with growers and retail food companies to demand and build a more modern, more humane agricultural industry.

In keeping with that message, the final stop on the tour cast light on just such a partnership in action, a model for the rest of the food industry that demonstrates, in no uncertain terms, that farm labor justice is not just necessary, and long overdue, but possible.

Our thanks go out to our friends at Compass and to all our gracious hosts along the route of the 2010 Northeast Tour. We couldn't have done it without you.

And to those thousands of people who passed through the museum and learned, some for the first time, some in still greater depth, of the exploitation in our country's fields, we look forward to joining with you this coming season as we seek to enlist the supermarket giants in the Campaign for Fair Food and, finally, bring a successful end to the decades-old struggle for justice in the fields.

Photo credit: theMOVE

On Monday morning, the museum crew set up in the heart of Boston with City Hall as the backdrop for another hot New England day. The stop yielded a great story on the local NPR affiliate, 99.9 WBUR (about 25:30 minutes into the segment), as well as coverage in the blogosphere.

The museum quickly became a point of interest for the throngs of Bostonians criss-crossing City Hall Plaza en route to the nearby T-stop and farmers market. The site also received many planned visits thanks to outreach by Massachusetts Interfaith Worker Justice, the Unitarian Universalist Association, Oxfam America, and other local organizations.

The stop continued well into the evening, as cooler temperatures allowed visitors to linger and inspect the finer details of the exhibit.

The next day, the tour passed through Northampton, MA, an area that is home to five universities and plenty of conscientious consumers. Set up on Main Street, the museum received visits from the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ and Nuestras Raices in Holyoke, among others.

The road-weary tour crew also took some time out of their schedule to pay a visit to a nearby Stop & Shop, where they flyered extensively and dropped off a manager letter encouraging the company to forge a partnership with the CIW to address farmworker exploitation in its tomato supply chain.

On hand for the afternoon's activities were local allies, including Alex, a student at Hampshire University and intern with Verite who worked hard to bring the museum to Northampton.

Day Sixteen found the tour crew back in the state of New York, this time in the quiet town of New Paltz, midway between Albany and New York City. The stop was hosted at St. Andrews Episcopal Church and received support from Rural Migrant Ministry, the Poughkeepsie Farm Project, and other local organizations, all of whom were gracious enough to accommodate the museum on very short notice.

And finally, after two days on the road from upstate New York, the museum pulled into the center of Baltimore's historic district and dropped anchor in the city's bustling Inner Harbor.

The USS Constellation, the crown jewel of the Inner Harbor, provided a perfect backdrop for the visit. From 1859-1861, the sloop-of-war was the flagship of the US African Squadron -- a unit of the US Navy -- and intercepted three slave ships off the coast of Africa, freeing over 700 slaves.

Throughout the day, the museum caught the attention of dozens of tourists and local faith allies...

... and, of course, our good friends at United Workers, who are engaged in their own struggle for fair development right in the heart of the Inner Harbor.

Stay tuned for the final tour update from Charlotte, NC!

After a powerful Day Eleven of bi-continental Ahold actions, the tour crew continued its blitz through New England, making four stops in just two days.

The first stop was at the largest of Providence's numerous farmers markets -- the Broad Street Market -- where community members gather every Saturday during the season to buy fresh produce from local farmers and to meet up with friends.

This week's shoppers not only found local heirloom tomatoes but also the truth behind Florida's plantation-scale tomato industry. With produce and fresh-cut flowers in hand, a steady stream of Providence residents visited the museum to learn more about the dire situation facing farmworkers in Florida's fields.

Inspired by the growing number of their students involved in the Campaign for Fair Food, Brown University media (pictured above) was there to document the morning's activities.

Among the visitors was one very special guest -- the 96-year-old grandfather of museum docent Brigitte Gynther -- who made the climb into the box truck to see the exhibit up close and personal.

The second stop for the day was at a prime location in the middle of downtown Providence, facing Kennedy Plaza and right next to City Hall.

The site also happens to be a central transportation hub for Rhode Island, which ensured a non-stop mix of museum-goers, from local residents waiting for the bus to planned visits by the Olneyville Neighborhood Association, Cleanwater Action, and DARE, among other allies.

Students were on hand for the afternoon visit, as well, including these volunteers from Brown who ably staffed the ever-busy information table.

Likewise, there was a strong support from the labor movement. Above, George Nees (right), President of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, and James Celenza, director of Rhode Island Committee on Occupational Safety and Health, tour the museum.

And, of course, our friends from Rhode Island Jobs with Justice joined us to plan for the future of the Ahold campaign.

The next morning the museum crew set up in an absolutely picturesque location at the St. Ignatius Catholic Church in Newton, MA, next to Boston College.

St. Ignatius offers three Masses on Sunday mornings, and following each service, dozens of parishioners filed out of the church and toured the waiting museum.

It wasn't only parishioners who welcomed the museum's presence. The Jesuit priest who presided over Sunday Mass displayed a wonderful spirit of hospitality and warmth throughout the morning.

Finally, the whirlwind two-day stretch concluded with a stop in Salem, MA, where the CIW enjoys something of a hometown hero status. As readers of this site may recall, in May 2009, Lucas Benitez and Gerardo Reyes accepted the 17th Annual Salem Award for Human Rights and Social Justice on behalf of the CIW.

In their own words, "The Salem Award for Human Rights and Social Justice is given each year to keep alive the lessons of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 and to recognize those who are speaking out and taking action to alleviate discrimination and promote tolerance."

A year later, award committee members received the Modern-Day Slavery Museum as it set up in the heart of Salem's historic district.

And in a stoke of fortuitous timing, the museum was featured as part of Salem's Heritage Festival, an annual event that attracts visitors from across New England. The historically-minded setting provided an opportunity for hundreds of consumers to learn about the heritage not only of their region, but of their food system and the unbroken chain of exploitation that has underlied it for four centuries.

Day Eleven of the Northeast Tour was a clear departure from previous days, distinguished by two inspiring actions that ratcheted up pressure on supermarket giant Ahold on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the U.S., the tour crew (pictured above) delivered nearly 1,000 postcards -- each signed by consumers during the first half of the three-week tour -- to Ahold USA's corporate headquarters in Quincy, MA.

While across the ocean in Amsterdam, Dutch Fair Food allies organized an impressive march and political theater in Ahold's hometown.

They were joined by the one and only Rev. Billy of the Church of Life after Shopping, shown here above talking with a member of the Dutch media before the launch of the march. Rev. Billy was in Amsterdam for the premier of "Crazyshopping," a musical comedy which opened Sunday in Amsterdam's biggest theater, the 1750 seat Royal Carre Theater.

Rev. Billy brought his unique mix of theater and protest to the Amsterdam action, preaching the values of ethical consumerism with the fervor and rhythms of an old school tent revival.

At the invitation of Holland-based Fair Food allies -- who recently put Ahold on notice with an open letter from Dutch labor unoins, faith-based organizations, and NGO's -- Rev. Billy helped lead an unconventional protest march through the heart of the historic city, from the Ahold-owned grocery chain Albert Heijn to Ahold's head offices on the Piet Heinkade. Along the way, the participants handed out thousands of leaflets to both tourists and Amsterdam residents alike.

The march was capped off with a rally on the brick plaza outside Ahold's corporate headquarters, where the political theater continued...

... followed by a visit from an Ahold spokesperson, who engaged in a brief dialogue with the marchers, represented here by Marijke Bijl of the Dutch immigrant worker NGO OKIA. Marijke also presented the representative with a packet of communications that had been submitted to Ahold by the Dutch Fair Food allies but never answered.

The Ahold representative emphasized his company's ongoing "investigation" of its Florida tomato supply chain and its two meetings with CIW representatives as evidence that his company is taking the Campaign for Fair Food seriously (though, as the Campaign is now entering its second decade and counts nine other major food corporations among its active partners -- and the slavery operation that Ahold claims to be "investgating" was investigated and prosecuted in US federal court -- it would seem that the time for "investigation" is over and the time for action is now...).

From all reports, the exciting Amsterdam action -- and Ahold's continuing refusal to join in a formal partnership with the CIW for fair farm labor conditions -- left the Dutch branch of the Campaign for Fair Food energized and ready for more acton in the weeks and months ahead!

Back stateside, the Northeast Tour crew set a course for Ahold's US corporate headquarters in Quincy, Massachusetts, just a few hours from its last stop in New York City (hence the New Amsterdam reference at the top of this update...).

This Stop&Shop distribution truck (Stop&Shop is one of Ahold's key US grocery chains) conveniently led the way along a good stretch of the route.

Once in Quincy, the tour crew wasted no time in setting up shop at the historic United First Parish Church, also known as "Church of the Presidents." Designed and built in 1827-28, this national historic site contains the graves of two Presidents, John and John Quincy Adams, and is considered one of the most august houses of worship in New England.

And, most conveniently, Ahold USA's corporate headquarters (the building shown here in the background on the left) was located across the street and just down the block from the museum's temporary home.

Ahold's corporate employees could hardly look out their windows without seeing the museum and the crowd it attracted throughout the day.

But the centerpiece of the museum's stop in Quincy was, of course, the delivery of consumer postcards to Ahold's headquarters. Here, Oscar Otzoy of the CIW counts and stacks over 1,000 postcards signed by Giant and Stop & Shop concerned customers from across the Eastern Seaboard -- from Virginia to DC to Philadelphia to New York to New Jersey -- postcards gathered in just a few days of the museum on tour.

Upon its arrival at the headquarter's entrance, however, our peaceful delegation of two CIW members and three allies was met by an utterly unnecessary additional security detail hired that day by Ahold executives. Upon entering the building, the delegation was greeted by still more security, promptly asked to leave, and firmly instructed to abandon the signed postcards of Giant and Stop & Shop customers -- cards that many corporations would call valuable customer feedback -- on the sidewalk outside.

Ahold's decision to greet the visit by the Modern day Slavery Museum with extra security demonstrates an almost total failure on the part of the company -- despite two face-to-face meetings between CIW and Ahold representatives to date -- to appreciate either the seriousness of the CIW or the gravity of the exploitation and degradation of farm labor in Florida we are calling on Ahold to address. We can only hope that the company's ongoing "review" of its Florida tomato supply chain ultimately demonstrates a better grasp of the Campaign for Fair Food and reality we are working to change.

But before our delegation was allowed to leave on such a bitter note, it appears that some cooler minds within Ahold may have regretted their hard-line "leave it on the sidewalk" security position, as the head of security was dispatched to meet the delegation.

Although we're not sure you could call it a meeting, since it consisted of little more than Ahold's security chief taking the stack of postcards, turning, and walking back inside...

Following that disappointing visit to Ahold headquarters, the museum crew returned to the "Church of the Presidents" for a little inspiration, which they quickly found at the tomb of the country's second president, John Adams.

Adams was a staunch foe of slavery and his son, John Quincy Adams, successfully argued the famous "Amistad" case in the Supreme Court, resulting in the freedom of dozens of Africans who had seized control of the slave ship on which they were being transported to the new world before it could deliver them into a life of slavery.

But before Amistad, and more than half a century before the Emancipation Proclamation, Adams the elder had this to say about slavery:

“Consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust, as offensive in the sight of God as it is derogatory from our own honor or interest of happiness”

Two hundred years later, those words remain wise and needed counsel, for Ahold, and the food industry as a whole, from farm to plate.

To kick off Week Two of the tour, the Modern-Day Slavery Museum spent three very busy days in New York, a Northern city heavily implicated in the history of chattel slavery.

This long-forgotten history is best reflected at African Burial Ground National Monument (pictured above), a 6.6-acre burial ground in Lower Manhattan that was used for both free and enslaved Africans from the 1690s until 1794. The burial ground was lost for generations and not re-discovered until 1991 when excavators were preparing the land at 290 Broadway for a new federal building.

Placing New York's slavery practices into context, Dr. Leslie Harris writes, "As in the South, black slave labor was central to the day-to-day survival and the economic life of Europeans in the colonial North, and no part of the colonial North relied more heavily on slavery than Manhattan.... Under both the Dutch and the British, slaves performed vital agricultural tasks in the rural areas surrounding New York City.... In the eighteenth century, only Charleston and New Orleans exceeded New York City in number of slaves."

Our site for the first of three days in Manhattan was in front of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, an incredibly beautiful, if unfinished, structure that is one of the two largest cathedrals in the world.

And with our gracious host and continuous visits from old friends (including some familiar faces from the Farmworker Freedom March), we didn't feel like strangers in the big city for long. Above, Las Mariposas Urbanas, the youth group at the Iglesia San Romero de las Americas (UCC), receive a firsthand tour of the museum from the CIW's Oscar Otzoy.

The tour crew made plenty of new friends, as well, such as this passerby who was so touched by the exhibit that he shared a hug with Oscar.

We were also honored to receive a visit from Dr. Eric Foner, the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University. Dr. Foner provided useful feedback during the planning phase of the museum and had this to say about the exhibit back in February:

"A century and a half after the Civil War, forms of slavery continue to exist in the world, including in the United States. This Mobile Museum brings to light this modern tragedy and should inspire us to take action against it."

Our second day in New York required skillfully maneuvering the cumbersome box truck through the very center of Manhattan, including Times Square, en route to our next stop at Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square.

But the tedious journey was well worth it as throngs of museum-goers crowded the site throughout the day...

... including close allies from the Poverty Initiative...

... and Domestic Workers United, another organization fighting against the long shadow of slavery. In case you missed the news, DWU recently won a major victory in Albany with the passage of the Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights. Congratulations, once again!

In June, the New York Times reported, "The State Senate has just passed a domestic workers’ bill of rights, with an array of guarantees that most workers take for granted, like paid holidays, sick days, vacation days and the right to overtime pay and collective bargaining....

Domestic workers, like farm workers, have long struggled for equality in the workplace. Labor protections drafted in the New Deal specifically excluded both groups of workers, who remain highly vulnerable to exploitation."

(Farmworkers, however, have had less success as of late petitioning the State Senate for similar reforms.)

Day Two was rounded out with a special visit from Florrie Burke (second from right), long-time CIW supporter and steadfast ally in the fight against modern-day slavery with the New York Anti-Trafficking Network and Freedom Network USA.

On our third and final day in New York, the museum relocated to Middle Collegiate Church and opened with a visit from the Mayor's office!

Above, Deputy Mayor of Legal Affairs Carol Robles-Roman and Deputy Counsel Norma Abbene speak with the CIW's Julia Perkins about the city's "Let's End Human Trafficking" initiative and the Campaign for Fair Food.

The civil servants were soon followed by a band of young visitors from the Lower Eastside Girls Club...

... and, later that day, workers from Make the Road New York (above), long, long-time friends who accompanied us on the very first Taco Bell Truth Tour!

Again in the evening, the museum was the place to be as community members got off work and visited, including members of Brandworkers International and the Global Action Project.

Even a pair visitors who had first seen the museum in its native Florida happened upon it in New York City...

... and they joined the growing ranks of consumers who are letting Ahold USA know exactly what they think of its decision to turn a blind eye to the exploitation in Florida's fields.

As the final day drew to a close, the museum crew began to turn its attention to the road ahead on the Northeast Tour.

But by any reasonable standard, the three-day visit was a smashing success, made possible, in large part, by the tireless efforts of the Community/Farmworker Alliance (who are preparing to turn the heat up on NYC grocery fave Trader Joe's) and the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI). Thanks to one and all who came out to the museum and continue to stand by the CIW in the Campaign for Fair Food!

Next stop: Quincy, MA!

To round out the first week of its Northeast Tour, the Modern-Day Slavery Museum departed Pennsylvania for its neighbor to the east, New Jersey. As its nickname hints, the Garden State itself is no stranger to fruit and vegetable production and has served as one of the northernmost points on the East Coast migrant farm labor circuit since the 1920s. Even today, many CIW members spend portions of their summers harvesting crops from tomatoes to blueberries on some of New Jersey's many farms.

On Day Six, tour crew members found themselves at the steps of beautiful Nassau Presbyterian Church in the heart of Princeton, just blocks from the renowned university of the same name.

And in a notable departure from previous tour stops, the mild, almost spring-like weather afforded museum-goers a wonderful opportunity to take in the exhibit at a leisurely pace...

... including Barbara Chaapel (left), director of communications for Princeton Theological Seminary which generously provided housing for three nights to the museum docents.

The museum was also lucky enough to host some important living history as Larry Spruill (left), a facilities manager at Princeton University, shared his family's stories of work and struggle in the agricultural fields of Somerset, North Carolina dating back to the period of chattel slavery.

Throughout the day, the museum received a steady stream of visitors from many local congregations, including members of the Nassau Presbyterianand Witherspoon Street Presbyterian churches, as well as students at Princeton Theological Seminary and supporters of the Crisis Ministry of Princeton and Trenton.

(As an interesting historical aside, Witherspoon Street was the one-time church of Renaissance man and life-long social justice crusader Paul Robeson. Robeson's father, himself an escaped slave from North Carolina, served as the church's minister from 1881 until 1901.)

As a pleasant day drew to a close, the tour crew felt confident that the Campaign for Fair Food will continue to thrive in Princeton thanks to their wonderful hosts and longtime supporters at Nassau Presbyterian Church, as well as the many others who were moved to action by the mobile exhibit.

The next day, the museum relocated to the Iglesia Presbiteriana Hispana in Paterson, NJ. The tour crew received a very warm reception at the church, many of whose members are Spanish-speaking immigrants who had little trouble relating to the CIW's quest for dignity and justice in the workplace.

In fact, as the CIW's Oscar Otzoy addressed the Sunday morning worship service, a constant flow of mini-buses transported many other Paterson residents to hundreds of low-wage, service-sector jobs throughout the New York City metropolitan area.

When the worship service concluded, it was off to races as a flood of church members, young and old, descended upon the museum for the next hour.

Above, the Rev. Noelle Damico of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (left) jumps in for some tag-team docenting alongside Kate Hadley of the Student/Farmworker Alliance...

... while elsewhere, the Rev. Lilia Ramirez (left) , our gracious host at the Iglesia Presbiteriana Hispana, studies the museum's recently re-designed display chronicling three centuries of forced labor in North Florida agriculture.

And after her personal tour of the museum, the Reverend was not shy in the least about encouraging her congregants to reflect on their consumer choices and to fill out postcards to Stop & Shop calling on the Ahold-owned supermarket chain to partner with the CIW to help stamp out slavery in Florida agriculture once and for all.

Next up: Three days in New York City!

After successful stops in Charlottesville, VA and Washington, DC, the Florida Modern-Day Slavery Museum spent two and a half days in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, and one-time capital of the United States.

The site for most of the visit -- directly outside Independence Hall, in a highly trafficked constellation of museums and historic buildings -- provided an ideal opportunity to reflect on the themes of freedom and bondage throughout American history. After all, it was in the colonial-era building located directly behind the mobile museum (pictured above) that the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were debated and adopted more than two hundred years and forty ago.

And it was in that same building where language condemning the slave trade as an "assemblage of horrors" was stripped from an early draft of the Constitution, in effect allowing the importation of slaves to continue unabated for another twenty years.

Indeed, the persistent gap between the ideals set forth in the country's founding documents and the grim reality of slavery for millions of people of African descent has given meaning to some of Philadelphia's best-known historical symbols.

The Liberty Bell, originally known as the "Independence Bell," was so named by the growing abolitionist movement which called Philadelphia home. In fact, the American Anti-Slavery Society was founded in Philadelphia in 1833 and later counted among its key members none other than Frederick Douglass. Douglass himself had passed through Philadelphia via the Underground Railroad in 1838 and would return to Independence Square six years later to encourage the nation to live out the famous bell's inscription to:

"... Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof..."

Over the course of the mid-ninteenth century, many men and women, both black and white, came to see the Liberty Bell as a powerful symbol of the struggle to abolish slavery.

But first, the Modern-Day Slavery Museum was due on Potter St. for a visit with our longtime friends at the Simple Way. As it turned out, they were hosting a block party that evening, which ensured that the museum would be visited by dozens of neighborhood residents.

As has been the case throughout the tour, the exhibit moved people to action. Above, community members sign postcards of support for the Campaign for Fair Food that will soon be delivered to Stop & Shop supermarket's corporate headquarters in Quincy, MA.

The visitors on Potter St. continued to stop by until late in the evening...

... but that didn't keep the tour crew from setting up the museum bright and early the following morning at Independence Visitor Center. As you can see, the July sun was in full effect by mid-afternoon, and so were the museum's accompanying umbrellas.

For two full days, the museum hosted tourists and locals alike, providing invaluable opportunities for friends and families, including scores of Giant and Stop & Shop customers, to learn about the hidden exploitation behind the fruits and vegetables sold at their supermarkets.

Even tourism industry workers stopped by, such as this man sporting layered colonial garb and a tricorne, apparently indifferent to the near-suffocating heat and humidity inside the box truck.

Crowds swelled throughout both days as the museum received visitors from the Philadelphia Student Union, Pennsylvania and New Jersey Human Trafficking Coalitions, Taxi Workers Alliance, Media Mobilizing Project and many other grassroots and social justice organizations throughout the city.

But regardless of size, the crowds were expertly handled by our crack docent team, including new addition Rudy Cortinas of the Student/Farmworker Alliance.

As the slogan on the back of the Media Mobilizing Project's t-shirts reads, "Movements begin with the telling of untold stories"...

... which is precisely the logic behind the CIW's Modern-Day Slavery Museum and Campaign for Fair Food. And as more and more consumers hear the stories about forced labor in Florida's fields, so will more and more food retail corporations be forced to make real changes to their supply chains, moving Florida's farmworkers one step closer to a future absent of slavery and moving our country one step closer to its highest ideals.

Last time the Modern-Day Slavery Museum graced the streets of DC, it was in the shadow of the Capitol Building on the National Mall, following a very special ceremony at the State Department.

This time -- though the setting may have been a bit less monumental, and we arrived to the city with a tad less ceremony -- we had a pretty spectacular spot too, setting up our traveling museum at the Church of the Pilgrims just blocks from DC's bustling Dupont Circle neighborhood.

The day started out quietly, with museum goers coming in small groups, or on their own, to take a leisurely trip through the exhibits...

 

 

... but as the day progressed, the crowds slowly grew...

... bringing with them some friends, like this group from the DC-based Polaris Project, one of the country's largest anti-slavery organizations and a close ally in the fight to end modern-day slavery...

... and this former fellow Floridian, Samuel Jennings, president of the Orlando chapter of the NAACP in 1964 who fought to integrate Orlando's lunch counters and later visited farmworker labor camps as a Department of Labor inspector. Mr. Jennings came upon the museum by chance on his way to work and stayed to take it all in.

And as the gloaming came to the streets of Washington, the museum truly came to life...

... with dozens of people filling the grounds, conversations in every corner, and promising new connections taking shape, giving hope that the awareness created on this day would not be in vain.

Next stop: Philadelphia!

When the CIW's Modern-Day Slavery Museum arrived in Charlottesville for the launch of the 2010 Northeast Tour, all the finest people of Virginia came out, including the Old Dominion's three favorite sons -- Messrs Madison, Jefferson, and Monroe -- under whose watchful gaze the museum crew set up the traveling exhibit at 8:00 in the morning on Charlottesville's downtown pedestrian mall.

With the museum open for business by 10 am, it wasn't long before the actual living, breathing people of Charlottesville showed up, too. And show up they did, with hundreds of area residents making their way through the museum despite temperatures over 100 degrees throughout most of the cloudless day.

Particularly strong was the turnout from local churches, including Westminster Presbyterian, Trinity Episcopal, and Charlottesville First Baptist, where pastors and parishioners alike made sure to spread the word of the museum stop during morning services.

The intense sun had one unexpected benefit -- driving museum goers toward the shaded information table, where scores of people signed postcards calling on Giant supermarket (one of Amsterdam-based Ahold's many brands) and Kroger to support the Campaign for Fair Food.

But before long, it was clear that the shade of the two small tents would not be enough. We would have to come up with something quick if people were going to to endure the sun long enough to experience the museum (the museum's many outdoor displays were not the only problem... by this point temperatures inside the truck itself were well over 100 degrees).

Necessity being the mother of invention, two new museum features were born on this scorching day in Charlottesville -- umbrellas for shade, and ice water for all! And just like that, the show could go on...

Local media covered the visit in style:

"Traveling museum displays modern-day slavery"
CBS/FOX 19 video

"A mobile slavery museum stops in Charlottesville" NBC 29 video

Charlottesville NPR

And we even had visits from a number of dignitaries, both domestic -- here Lucas Benitez of the CIW stands with Congressman Bob Filner (D-CA) who, beyond being a US Congressman was an original Freedom Rider who spent several months of his life in a Mississippi jail in 1961 for his brave efforts, inspiring many within the CIW to continue the fight for fundamental civil and human rights today --

-- and foreign! At the very peak of the day's heat, the museum was host to a delegation of visitors from Charlottesville's sister city of Winneba in Ghana. Charlottesville's mayor, Dave Norris (on right with blue shirt), who was largely responsible for securing the museum's plum location on Charlottesville's mall for the day, arranged for the visit and accompanied the delegation on its tour...

... which began with a brief orientation...

... continued with a visit to the truck itself and its exhibits on the many recent slavery prosecutions that make up the contemporary history of forced labor in Florida's fields...

... and included a viewing of the "The Orange Juice Man," the 60 Minutes video on the life and times of the infamous farm labor boss Wardell Williams. The must-see video does an excellent job of demonstrating the abject failures of government safeguards, both local and federal, in protecting farmworker rights.

Once through the museum, the Ghanian delegation didn't hesitate to share their feelings of shock and dismay at the continued existence of forced labor in US fields in 21st century. Parts of this interview with a member of the delegation are included in the Channel 19 report here.

They also took action, joining hundreds of Charlottesvillians on this day in signing postcards to Giant and Kroger.

With the day coming to a close, the Modern-Day Slavery Museum team couldn't leave Charlottesville without a final stop at one little known landmark in the heart of the old city, the "Number Nothing" house (the address is 0 Park Street), the site where enslaved Africans were sold at public auction to the planters (including many of the Old Dominion's favorite sons...) that settled the state. Today, the painted sign that once announced the auction block has faded (the strip of darker brick that covers the space between the two floors is where the letters could still be read just 20 years ago)...

... and by this plaque marking the spot, reminding passersby that on this corner once stood a stone block used for the "auctioning of both goods and slaves" until slavery was abolished after the Civil War.

Which is where the Modern-Day Slavery Museum picks up the story... and where, if you live in Washington, D.C., you can learn more about the post-Civil War history of forced labor in Florida and along the East Coast by coming out to the Church of the Pilgrims at 22nd and P Streets and checking out the second stop of the 2010 Northeast Tour. See you there!