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September 15-18, 2011 | Immokalee & Fort Myers, Florida
At the culmination of the Do the Right Thing Tour this past spring, the CIW led a popular theater piece outside a busy Tampa Publix on the theme of the "New Day" of rights and dignity beginning to dawn in Florida's fields as a result of the hard-fought victories of the Campaign for Fair Food.
Appropriately, the image of that "New Day" figured heavily in this year's recently-held Fair Food Summit in Immokalee... |
...where the CIW held another educational theater — one with decidedly lower production value but a message just as compelling.
Indeed, the critical crossroads at which the Campaign now stands — moving slowly but surely out of the darkness of the agricultural industry's past, witnessing a new sun dawning over the horizon, and confronting the Trader Joe's, Publixes, Aholds and Krogers of the world who are doing everything in their power to smother and squash that sun and extend the long night of farmworker degradation — provided the overarching framework for the weekend's critical discussions, workshops, and strategy sessions. |
In the tradition of Encuentros and Strategy Retreats of the past, the Fair Food Summit brought together the best and brightest organizers from the Fair Food Movement, with a twist: This year the gathering was intentionally multi-sector and multi-generational, uniting students, community leaders, and people of faith from Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, New York, California, DC, and points between.
And as with any gathering of allies in Immokalee, the CIW provided the welcoming on the Summit's first evening. Here, members of the CIW's Women's Group open the weekend... |
...and participate in the aforementioned theater that took place the next morning.
With the supermarkets trying to prevent the "new day" in Florida's fields, another main focus of the weekend was figuring out how to strengthen our movement — including reaching back into our toolbox of more aggressive tactics from past campaigns, some of which you can see depicted here — in order to break the impasse brought about by the stubborn resistance of the supermarket industry.
And, well, since we believe you can't have consciousness without taking action (and since you can only show so many pictures of people participating in workshops)...
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...we bring you the following snapshots from a spirited and sweaty Publix picket in Fort Myers by Fair Food Summit participants and local allies... |
...where the ubiquitous human relations hacks and nameless public relations drones from Publix headquarters were nowhere to be found and hundreds of flyers were distributed to loudly-honking motorists as they slowed and stopped on one of Fort Myers' busy thoroughfares to offer their support to the protesters.
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The action continued into the early afternoon... |
...with farmworkers, students, people of faith and consumers standing shoulder-to-shoulder... |
...in a preview of much bigger things to come this season (well, for Trader Joe's, this weekend...) |
The action raised adrenaline and animo to power participants through the rest of the day's critical strategy and campaign planning sessions, which started promptly after this game of Move Your Butt (yea, we took it there...) |
As the summit came to a close, the layers of extensively-scribbled flipchart paper were lowered from the walls, goodbyes (more like "see you soon at the next big action") were said, and participants left Immokalee with a replenished commitment to see to it that the sun finally rises over Florida's fields.
Farmworkers and their allies have barely begun to cross a bridge. On one side are decades of poverty and abuse endured by the people who harvest this country's food; in front of us is a future of dignified wages and working conditions.
No one starts to cross a bridge just to get stopped in the middle.
Try as they may to shake that bridge's cables, to knock its platform loose, supermarkets like Trader Joe's and Publix have nothing on the commitment and determination of Immokalee's workers and their allies to the deadly serious issues at stake... |
...nor on the pure, simple and indefatigable joy of knowing that we will not be turned back, that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, and that victory is only a matter of time.
Now let's make it happen.
- Fair Food Festival and Major Trader Joe's action: New York City, Saturday, Sept. 24
- Major protest and rally at Trader Joe's corporate headquarters in Monrovia, CA, Friday, October 21st
Visit Just Harvest USA for more info
- National Supermarket Week of Action
October 16-24, 2011-- stay tuned for details!
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