Report on the Atlanta immigrant workers demonstration

["Jose G. Perez" <jg_perez@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

[This is a draft of an article being prepared for Solidarity News. Some
details meant to be included in a final version, aren't yet here,
including some of the other speakers, because of the need to
double-check name spellings, affiliations, and similar details.

[The article doesn't give an estimate for the crowd size because the
person who wrote it wasn't in a position to be able to see the protest
at its high point, but estimates heard from individual organizers at
various points during the event ranged from 3,000 to 5,000.

[The march and rally were overwhelmingly Latino and extremely militant.
The turnout took by surprise the union officials who had taken on the
task of organizing the Town Meeting, as did the response to Adelina
Nicholls's speech. The shift from an indoor meeting to an outdoor rally
transformed the event, making it a much more direct expression of the
Latino immigrants' combativity.

[Activists from Solidarity and Freedom Road were very heavily involved
in this project, as were progressive-minded union staffers, union
officers and rank-and-file militants. Often, these are people who in the
past were affiliated with one or another socialist current, especially
in the New Communist Movement. Some SWP members also related to it,
although they were less centrally involved, as did the WWP members in
town. Some (a few) people associated with the RCP attended the event but
played no part in helping to organize it. The ISO, which has a
functioning unit here, did not do either, as far as I could tell.]

*  *  *

Immigrant March for Dignity: 'We are workers, we demand respect!'

By Joaquín Bustelo

ATLANTA -- Thousands of immigrant workers and their supporters marched
and rallied here September 29 to demand drivers' licenses and equal
rights for immigrant workers. 

The protest, held in the framework of the national Immigrant Workers
Freedom Ride initiated by the labor movement, was spearheaded by the
Direct Action Committee of the Georgia for Safe Roads Coalition, the
Coordinating Council of Latino Community Leaders, the Atlanta Labor
Council (AFL-CIO) and the Atlanta chapter of Jobs with Justice, a
national labor-community-church-student alliance.

Dozens of other groups and many prominent individuals actively supported
the action and other freedom ride activities, prominent among them
groups and individuals from the Black civil rights movement, including
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, groups representing
African, Arab and other immigrants, and many individual unions, notable
among them UNITE, which is on an organizing campaign among industrial
laundry workers in Georgia, many of whom are undocumented immigrants.

The protest was held in the metro area city of Doraville, where there is
a major UAW-organized GM Assembly Plant and the union has significant
influence in municipal politics. It is also a major immigrant
neighborhood. The starting point for the march was the Catholic Mission,
Our Lady of the Americas, which is next door to a mass transit station,
and the end point was the UAW Local 10 headquarters.

As the march crossed a paralyzed Buford Highway, the heart of the Latino
community, the chants could be heard for blocks around, "Licenses,
licenses, licenses," and "Bush --listen, we are in the struggle" and the
farmworkers' rallying cry, "Sí se puede."

Originally, an indoor Town Hall meeting had been scheduled after the
march. However, as the march began arriving at Local 10 it became
obvious that the crowd would overwhelm the 700-seat auditorium, so a
pickup truck was turned into an improvised stage and the rally was held
in the union parking lot. Parts of the rally were broadcast live by
Radio Mex, one of a half-dozen Spanish language AM stations that have
sprung up in the past decade as the Georgia Latino community exploded
from around 150,000 to more than half a million, according to the
official count, but probably closer to a million in reality.

For this bourgeoning community, drivers' licenses is a desperate need,
and their denial has become a symbol for all the indignities, abuse and
exploitation that they are subjected to.

Perhaps the best received speaker by the overwhelmingly Hispanic crowd
was Adelina Nicholls, an immigrant from Mexico who is vice-president of
the Coordinating Council and the main organizer of the campaign for
drivers licenses for immigrants in Georgia.

Speaking in Spanish, she began by addressing the Freedom Riders who had
come into town in the morning. "Today is a historic day in the State of
Georgia, and we want to let our brothers and sisters know that here,
too, we have launched the struggle to demand our rights be respected and
to obtain drivers' licenses.

"Today the Latino Community, as well as out Afro-American brothers and
sisters, our American brothers and sisters, have decided to take to the
streets in an action called the March for Dignity, and we come to say
that you are not alone, the time has come for our voice to be heard and
we will not take even one step back in our struggle to obtain the
respect we deserve."

Nicholls slammed the hypocrisy and racism that brands undocumented
immigrants as "illegals."

"They call us illegals while we build roads that we aren't allowed to
drive on ... they call us illegals while we prepare the food in their
restaurants ... they call us illegal while we take care of and raise
their children ... they call us illegal while we process the chicken
they eat ... they call us illegal while we tend to their gardens from
dawn to dusk ... they call us illegal while we build their houses and
harvest their crops."

To every accusation the crowd responded with pumping fists and shouts of
"Duro! Duro! Duro!" -- hit them hard.

"Today we have come out to say, enough!

"No more abuse, no more discrimination, no more racism, no more police
harassment!

"We are workers," Nicholls said, "and we demand respect."

"Who are we," Nicholls asked, again and again.

And time and again the crowd roared back "Somos trabajadores" -- "We are
workers!"

"The struggle continues," Nicholls concluded. "Today is just the
beginning of this great movement. 

"In unity there is strength. The people united will never be defeated."


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