REMEMBER SEATTLE – MARCH TO MIAMI

ASJE’s March to Miami was a series of 30 educational events, rallies and protest marches against the FTAA in 23 cities and 15 states covering 5500 miles from September to November, 2003.

We wanted to show the strength of blue/green alliances in communities across the country.We started in Seattle on the “Blue-Green Machine”, a 1974 Crown bus driven and owned by Rick Fellows of Olympia. There were seven of us and we were joined by two more “bus people” in Spokane.

I produced and wrote this slide show so that all those of us who participated in the March to Miami will remember and build on the strength we felt as we organized together.

Dan Leahyleahyd@evergreen.edu June, 2004

Rick Fellows from Olympia had a blue/green bus and was a 20 year veteran driver for Pastors for Peace caravans in Mexico, Central America and Cuba. He said going across the US would be easy.

Chris Preucil, on the ladder painting the bus, was a founderof the Alliance. Chris joined the bus people as an organizerand advance person. She stayed with us all the way to Miami driving her own Volvo station wagon.

The Blue-Green Machine had four single bunks, two doubles,a stove, refrigerator and a Cummins turbo-diesel that wouldn’t quit. We burned bio-diesel fuel whenever we could find it.

Jeanne Passarelli, a union organizer on loan to the USWA,helped us organize our first event up in Seattle. Jeanne lives in Olympia and after the March went to work for the Alliance.

Our first stop was the Seattle Labor Temple on Friday September26th for an evening teach-in on the FTAA. It was sponsored by the Washington Education Association, the PNW Sierra Club and the Longview ILWU local.

Olympia’s Citizens Band opened the educational forum.Friday evening, Jim Cubbage, Grace Cox and Harry Levine. Harry stayed with us all the way to Miami as part of our Blue/Green duo with Melissa Roberts.

Vance Lelli, President of the Pierce County CentralLabor Council in Tacoma, Washington and a member of Tacoma’s ILWU Local, joined the Citizens Band for a few songs.

On Saturday morning, we marched from the Seattle LaborTemple to Pier 61 on the Seattle waterfront. Al Link, SecretaryTreasurer of the State Labor Council, Lynn Dodson from SeattleJobs with Justice and Steve Kofahl from AFGE led the march.

Melissa Roberts, out front with the “Stop the FTAA!” sign,led us down Alaska Way to Pier 61. Melissa stayed with usto Miami as part of the “Blue/Green Duo” with Harry Levine.

The sub-district office of the USWA and SPEEA sponsoredthe rally on the Pier. We all performed our first “FTAA – No Way” song – soon to be heard all across the country. Jessica Bone-Bright, a SPEEA staff person, (center, right) led the aerobics.

Faculty member, Glen Cosby and the Student Association for Nature and the Environment (SANE) sponsored our presentations to three different classes. We met 600 students this day.

Sharon Closson, staff member with the Washington EducationAssociation and Bob Kenyon, a member of the USWA,helped organize our rally at Spokane’s waterfront park.

Laura Brunell, a Gonzaga University Professor, broughtmembers of Gonzaga’s Justice Club to our rally.

John Goodman, an original founder of the Alliance anda member of the USWA local in Spokane, spoke to usabout dangers to American democracy and the need to fight back. It was an honor to have John with us in Spokane.

Stephanie Smith and Ellen Pickenparticipated in the “readers theater”play, “Race to the Bottom.”

The play demonstrates how “freetrade” agreements pit one workeragainst another in an internationalscheme to lower wages.

The Not Ready for Free Trade Players, led by Harry Levineand Melissa Roberts, always ended Bill Carey’s Race to the Bottom skit with a rendition of Mike Prokosch’s song: FTAA No Way! -- “Workers! Is your job headed south? Well soon…”

After Spokane, we stopped in Coeur d’Alene to help Barbara Harris collect signatures to repeal Idaho’s Right to Work law. Later we held a rally in Kellogg, Idaho, at the USWA Hall. Barbara Miller (above), head of the Silver Valley CommunityCoalition, spoke about getting the EPA to clean up her town.

In 1972, 172 miners were killed in the Sunshine Mine disaster.The company, however, still wanted more silver. They kept the mine running even though the scrubbers had been destroyed by thefire. This led to the largest, recorded heavy metal poisoning.

Cathy Gunderson, from a USWA Local introducedCass Davis, who was a boy of 12 when the mine dumped lead poisoning on him and the communities of western Idaho. Steve Powers, business representative fromthe USWA sub-district office, helped organize the rally.

After Kellogg, we drove to Missoula for an educationalforum at St. Paul’s Lutheran church. The “Not Ready forFree Trade Players” struck again with another skit performance

Mo O’Brien (on the right), a member of the Montana Medics Collective, helped prepare food for the Friday evening educational forum. We met up with Mo again on the Root Cause march into Miami. Her collective kept us all healthy, even our tired feet.

Thanks to Mark Anderlik and the Montana CommunityLabor Alliance we entered the University of Montana’s Homecoming Parade. Darla Torrez, from the MontanaMedics Collective and her daughter Autumn, guided theMarch to Miami through the Missoula streets.

Even during the HomecomingParade in Missoula, Montana,Emiliano Zapata, a great leaderof the Mexican revolution, is present.

We heard the Mexican chant, “Zapata Vive! La Lucha Sigue!” in cities all across the U.S. We were still shouting it when wearrived in Miami.

Emilian O’Zapata is also a memberof the Batallon de San Patricio.

We drove from Missoula to Butte, Montana to see the Nation’s largest superfund site, the Berkeley Pit.The Anaconda Copper Mining Company and its successor, ARCO, left a 600 acre toxic lake holding 28 billion gallonsof toxic water. The water is acidic enough to liquefy a motorboat’s steel propeller.

ARCO had mined the Pit below the water table. When it stopped operations in 1983 and shut down the water pumps, water continued to flow into the pit creating more toxic water at the rate of two to three million gallons per day.

We headed out of Butte for West Yellowstonewhere we planned to visit the Buffalo Fields Campaign, about 100 miles south.

This is the headquarters of the Buffalo Field Campaignwhen people from around the world come to help savethe Buffalo from slaughter when they wander off the Park.

We kept this slide in because it was just too beautifulto leave out, plus it was Dan’s 60th birthday.

We drove to Billings for an educational forum with the Northern Plains Resource Council and then landed in Bismarck, North Dakota. Here, Mark Trechock from the Dakota Resource Council, lead another educational forumfocused on free trade and sustaining family farms.

The Dakota Resource Council held a press conferenceand rally at the Capitol’s steps in Bismarck, North Dakota. Dave Kemnitz, President of the North Dakota AFL-CIO, hostedthe rally along with Jeri Lynn Bakken from WORC and others.

On our way up to the Northeast corner of North Dakotawe stopped at Finley, North Dakota and talked with soybeanfarmers unloading their crop at the grain elevators.

Bill Tuttle and Mark Froemke from the Grain Millers union in Drayton, North Dakota organized a rally, picnic and teach in to oppose the FTAA. As you can see from the front row, some could not stop doing the “FTAA-No Way” song.

The Grain Millers put black flags on the hill top to signifyJob loss due to NAFTA in North Dakota and northern Minnesota.Each flag represents a 1000 lost jobs. All told, corporations haveeliminated 166,000 jobs since the advent of NAFTA.

After Drayton, we crossed northern Minnesota to reachEveleth on the Iron Range. We rallied and marched thereand met up there with a contingent of the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR). We saw them again in the streets of Miami.

As usual, we marched to a closed plant to highlight the disastrous effects of trade agreements, like the North AmericanFree Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization(WTO).

After staying with the Laney family in Colfax, Wisconsin, weheaded into Minneapolis for a teach-in organized by Tara Widner at Macalester College. While in Minneapolis, we stayedat the home of Chrysta, Maya Yul, Marilyn Thompson and Diane.

Pete Putney, from the USWA local, was our guide to the Des Moines, Iowa rally. We set up a literature table and listened to the speakers which included Denise O’Brien from the Women’s Agricultural Network and former USWA International President, George Becker.

We could not resist doing “the song”, however. Here we arefrom left to right: Harry at the podium, Bethany Weidner, Chris“the voice” Preucil, Dan Leahy, Mary Oleri and PatrickStarnes. Rachel Hicks was filming and Melissa was too far left.

One of the greatest parts of the March was meeting the peoplewho put us up in their homes. In Des Moines, John Campbell, Jr.and Judy Lowe welcomed us to their homes. Here Bethany triesto get Judy to come with us.

We traveled southeast out of Des Moines, camped on theMississippi south of Hannibal, Missouri and then crossedrhe river on this ferry to the Illinois side and headed to Granite City.

We were greeted at the Granite City USWA local byDennis Barker and Brad Mullen, the two guys in theMarch to Miami shirts.

Dennis and Brad took us on a history tour of GraniteCity’s famous labor history. They also showed us theLabor Temple where the great socialist party Presidentialcandidate and labor leader, Eugene Victor Debs, once spoke.

On Thursday evening, October 16th, Bob Soutier, SecretaryTreasurer of the St. Louis Labor Council, opened up a Town Hall Discussion entitled, “Revitalizing American Manufacturing.” Bob Baugh, Executive Director of the AFL-CIO’s Industrial Union Council (on the left) and Rodney Grim (on the right), Executive Director of the St. Louis Development Corporation were among the speakers.

Next day, the St. Louis Jobs withJustice, led by Lara Granich, organized a rally at Kiener Plaza indowntown St. Louis.

Here we gathered our forces for a march through the center of town.

District 7 of the USWA, based in Gary, Indiana, broughtbusloads of members to participate in the rally. This localunion officer asked us to take his “Missouri Says No toThe FTAA” poster to Miami.

Lara Granich gives us our marching orders aswe made four stops in the downtown to emphasizehow trade agreements effect our work life, our communities and our environment.

As in many places along the March to Miami, the localSierra Club chapter participated in the St. LouisMarch. The Sierra Club in conjunction with UNITE is battling the CINTAS corporation, the largest laundryin the United States.

We left St. Louis at night to get to Kansas City thenext morning where we joined another march andrally against the FTAA. Here ASJE’s Chris Preucil ,speaks at one of the stops along the march.

At another stop in the Kansas City march, we protested theclosing of a former non-profit hospital that used to servea primarily poor section of town. The hospital had beenbought by the profiteering HCA corporation and shut down.

Here to in Kansas City, there was that fateful meeting betweenour filmmaker, Rachel Ann Hicks, and that wily, western, writer of withering w-rapture, Steven Anderson, Kansas farmer and poet. See Rachel’s film, Driving it Home, for further explanations.

After Kansas City, we doubled backthrough St. Louis, visited the gravesite of Mother Jones, a BatallonMember, in Mt. Olive, Illinois and then headed for Indianapolis, Indiana.

Here we participated in a great rallyreplete with dinner and music sponsored by USWA District 7 and the Indiana State Federation of Labor.

The “Indy” folks let their views be known to the rushhour traffic and then came back to the rally and dinner.

Irene Ozug-Hartline, a USWAmember, made her views known to those folks passing by.

People attending the rally, also heard talks from Jim Robinson,District 7 President and KenZeller, President of the StateFederation, AFL-CIO.

Ken also let us park the Blue-Green Machine at the Federation building while the “bus people” took a week off for rest and relaxation.

After our week break, we left Indy andtraveled to Dayton, Ohio for a massivenoon hour teach-in at the IUE Hall.

Over 600 people attended and learned more about the effect of NAFTA andabout the proposed FTAA.

In the afternoon, we headed up to South Bend, Indiana to participatein a march and teach-in at the Universityof Notre Dame.

This was where we first heard KristinShrader-Frechette, a professor ofphilosophy and biological sciences.

This is the headquarters of USWA District 7 in Gary, Indiana. Bill Carey, who was ASJE’s Co-Chair, workshere and helped organize five M2M events in Indianaand Illinois. We also held a press conference here organizedby Robin Rich, USWA Rapid Response Coordinator, and MikeMisiukiewicz.

Brach’s was the largest candy manufacturer in the UnitedStates. They closed this plant in the South Austin neighborhoodof Chicago and sent the jobs to Mexico and Argentina.

There are no Wal-Marts in Chicago, but Wal-Mart wantsto put a store in South Austin. UFCW L. 881 and communityand church groups want “Justice” not slave wage jobs.

One of the great things about the Brach rally was the largenumber of labor and community groups who came together to protest the job loss and to struggle for a better community.

The Teamsters truck provided the stage for our rally at Brach’s. Here Romeo Ramirez from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers is introduced.

The leader of the Killer Coke Campaign, Luis AldolfoCardona, joined us at the Brach Rally in Chicago. With Luis are Rick Fellows, Melissa Roberts and Emily Phillips. Boycott Coke.

Robin Rich, Rapid Response Coordinator for USWA District 7 in Gary, Indiana, invited us to one of herworkshops in Aurora, Illinois, west of Chicago.

On our way south, we stopped in Bloomington, Indiana where Rickran into another veteran driver of peace caravans to Cuba. Just likethis guy, Rick is now taking a break from driving to enjoy his newdaughter, Olivia, who arrived when he got home from the March.

After we completed a forum at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, we headed to Memphis, Tennesseefor a three day stay at the home of Dwayne Langdon, Rachel Hicks’ mom. We visited the national civil rights museum andReverend Al Green’s Full Gospel Church.

We went from Memphis to Birmingham where Greg England, Rapid Response Coordinator for USWA District 9, had organizeda March to Miami forum at Local 1013’s union hall.

Rachel Hicks not only filmed all the marches and forums, but shealso conducted interviews. Here Rachel and Emily Phillips listento Greg England talk about the history of the steel industry inBirmingham.

Randy Zimmerman interviewed us in Tampa. One of the best news sources for us along the March was independent and localradio programs. KAOS radio station in Olympia, for example,broadcast events along the March all the way to Miami.

The Florida Fair Trade Coalition, headed by Eric Rubin,organized a March to Miami forum at the Iron WorkersTraining Center in Tampa.

The Iron Workers showed us their giant rat which theytook down to Miami the following week. The Miamipolice said the rat was too dangerous and was not allowed to protest.

Eric Rubin leads off a series of speakers at the IronWorkers rally. One of the nicest things about therally was the number of student leaders who spoke.

This was our last performance of the “Not Ready forFree Trade Players.” Along with our FTAA-No Way Song, this play was one of the best parts of our Marchto Miami. Thank you, Bill Carey and theater organizers,Harry Levine and Melissa Roberts.

Denny May, on the left, is a professor at Northern VirginiaCommunity College. He showed up in Tampa to say hi tohis old friend, Dan Leahy. Denny and Dan were the leadorganizers of the national Citizens Party in the late 70s and early 80s.

We drove from Tampa to Immokalee, Florida and stopped at the headquarters of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. (CIW). We picked up 25 members of the CIW and headed for Ft. Lauderdale to join the Root Cause 34 mile march into downtown Miami.

The Resurrection Catholic Church in Dania Beach, Florida, hosted the first gathering of folks prior to thebeginning of the Root Cause March. Jessica Smith, Mike Pfaff and Chrysta Thompson, members of the Batallon de San Patricio, joined us here for the march into Miami.

The Reverend Anthony Tomasulo, pastor at the ResurrectionChurch, talked to us and gave us his blessing before we lefton the March. Churches along the route were very importantto us for sanctuary and moral support.

The CIW organizers developed a disciplined group of marchers. We signed covenants and wore the yellow T-shirts for solidarity and attended briefings each day to keepcommunications open and clear.

Julia Perkins, a CIW organizer, (on the right with themicrophone) was the person who negotiated marchingpermits with all the local jurisdictions from Dania Beach to Miami.

We walked for three days into Miami. Here some March to Miami Steelworkers join the Root CauseMarchers.

Romeo Ramirez, one of the leaders of the Coalition ofImmokalee Workers (CIW), leads us in a chant, “I said,‘Up with the People!’ – “Yeh, yeh.” The great chants, music, songs and recorded speeches kept our spirits up.

Romeo’s mom also marched along with us!

Even filmmakers get blisters. Here Rachel Hicks finally gets one after her 5500 mile March to Miami.

Marta Burke, pastor of the Fulford United MethodistChurch marched along with Dan Leahy, Patrick Starnesand Mary Oleri. Fulford UMC in North Miami Beachwas another church who hosted the Root Cause marchers.

Men, women, kids, workers, farmers, teachers, students andthe people are united against the FTAA.

There were police everywhere. Motorcycle police, bikepolice, police in squad cars (marked and unmarked), policein vans, police on overpasses, police we didn’t see. We kept marching until we reached “the fence” in downtown Miami.

Archbishop, John D. Favalora showed his support aswe stopped at St. Martha’s Catholic Church in Miami Shores.

Alberto Garcia (at the mike) kept us walking strong with hischants and strong voice.

Jason Wallach (grey t-shirt) talks with Michael Prokoschwho works for United for Fair Economy. Michael is theauthor of the FTAA song, as well FTAA for Beginners.

This woman marched with us all three days and her messagewas clear: FTAA – Fascists, Terrorists And Assassins.

We made three stops when we got to Miami. One to supportthe boycott of Taco Bell, one to protest the illegal imprisonmentof Haitian refugees and one to protest the privatization of thepublic school system.

Lots of people welcomed us to Miami and they hadthe same message as people all across the country.