Letter to Publix CEO Ed Crenshaw on 40th Anniversary
of Death of New College Student Nan Freeman
at Protest in Support of Farmworker Rights
Jan. 25, 2012
Dear Mr. Crenshaw,
As New College students and members of the Sarasota community, we write to you to convey our tremendous disappointment with your company's refusal to partner with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to advance human rights for Florida tomato pickers.
On this day, on the 40th anniversary of her death, we honor the legacy of Nan Freeman, a New College freshman who lost her life in the admirable struggle to secure more dignified work conditions for Florida farmworkers. Ms. Freeman, in the words of United Farm Workers (UFW) leader Cesar Chavez, "is Kadosha in the Hebrew tradition, 'a holy person' to be honored and remembered" and someone who "poured out her one life so that farmworkers everywhere might be more free."
We are proud of New College's long history of supporting justice for the men and women who harvest the food we eat. Just as Ms. Freeman and her peers picketed and pamphleted in solidarity with the UFW in 1972, so too did New College students open up their dorm rooms to CIW members during their epic, 230-mile "March for Dignity, Dialogue, and a Fair Wage for Florida's Farmworkers" in 2000. And in 2010, New College played a vital role, in concert with university students across the country, in spurring food-service provider Sodexo to reach an accord with CIW for better pay and improved work conditions in their tomato supply chain.
Yet, in lieu of harnessing your prodigious market power to better the lives of the people who harvest the tomatoes sold in your supermarkets, Publix has shamefully resolved to shrug off abuses, going so far as to say in December 2010 that, "If there are some atrocities going on, its not our business."
Today, on the 40th anniversary of Ms. Freeman's martyrdom for the cause of farmworker justice, we recommit ourselves with greater tenacity and dedication than ever before, to carry her torch forward and do all we possibly can to create a more just, more humane agricultural industry, and that entails bringing your company, Florida's predominant grocer, onto the right side of history.
