USSF day 2: The Opening March

Today was the opening day for the Forum with a march, an opening ceremony, a concert and several other activities. The Forum events and activities are located all over downtown Atlanta, which makes for a nice way to explore the city if we were biking. Without bikes, however, at the end of the night, most of us got blisters from extensive walking. Whatever pain we felt in our feet, however, was replaced by joy in our hearts when we saw how large the grassroots people's movement is as we join the hundreds of other organizations at the opening march. Virtually every sector was represented at the march from youth to immigrants to workers to students. Long-time APEN allies and friends whom I have heard of but have never met because they were across the country marched side by side with us. Old friends from our previous work turned up and it made me realize how connected we are and how important it is for us to maintain those connections. I ran into a friend who was with the United Students Against Sweatshop back when I was active in campus labor activities; he is now part of the international campaign to demand justice and reparations from Coca Cola. Mari Rose spotted a friend from her Albuquerque/SNEEJ days and she ended marching with us the whole way!

At the march, members of each delegation were rocking their organization's matching t-shirts. You can tell how deep a delegation is by how large their patch of color was in the march and we sure made a beautiful art canvas: Miami Worker Center in baby blue, POWER in bright orange, CAAAV in white tank tops, MUA in purple, APEN in yellow, and more. Atlanta must not have seen such vibrancy and energy in a long time because we drew a lot of attention from downtown office workers and bystanders; many came down from their office towers to watch us from their front steps.

It was another typical summer day in Atlanta but all of us from APEN and, I'm sure, Bay Area delegation were definitely affected by the weather. The march was long, the heat was almost unbearable, and the humidity was high, but as we walked, our spirits were encouraged when we thought about the grassroots organizers who came before us and marched a similar route and on a similar hot summer day for civil rights. We and they were marching together because we believe that "another world is possible."

After the march was finished, the opening ceremony had a wide variety of inspirational and passionate speakers. I want to end this blog with a chant that one of the speakers taught us. From Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) in New York, here's a popular East Coast chant inspired and from Assata Shakur:

(call and response 3 times with each time louder and the 3rd as loud as you can be)

It is our duty to fight. (It is our duty to fight.)
It is our duty to win. (It is our duty to win.)
We must love and protect each other. (We must love and protect each other.)
We have nothing to lose but our chains. (We have nothing to lose but our chains.)