The Caravan is On the Road...

Rolling out with painted buses, this stylish crew of 100 from across the state of New Mexico (including folks from California) launches the People's Freedom Caravan. With a new vision of democracy, the buses head across 7 states over 6 days through the southwest and hurricane alley to land at the 1st US Social Forum in Atlanta. Along the way over 75 community-based organizations and thousands of people in each city will converge to share cultures and work towards grassroots solutions to issues of poverty, globalization and pollution.

The New Mexico Delegation consists of residents from Pajarito Mesa fighting for basic services, Immigrants fighting for a just immigration reform, Indigenous people protecting sacred sites, African Americans preserving historical traditions and culture, policy organizations fighting for working families and other allies from around the state.

“The caravan will unite across racial, cultural, geographic and language barriers to advocate for people-based solutions and to create a democracy that works for everyone not just a selected few,” says Bineshi Albert, Board President of SouthWest Organizing Project.

The caravan is scheduled to arrive in San Antonio Friday evening.

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From ABQ journal

Activists Join People’s Caravan

Bus tour to focus on social, economic disparities on way to forum in Atlanta

BY DEBRA DOMINGUEZ-LUND
Journal Staff Writer

They are seeking another form of U.S. democracy — one they say is based on “equality, living wages, sustainability and human rights.”

About 100 community members and civil rights activists will gather as the sun comes up Friday morning at Washington Park near Downtown Albuquerque to launch a “People’s Caravan” across the nation.

The bus caravan, a grassroots effort by participating groups such as the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Southwest Organizing Project, was created in remembrance of the first Freedom Ride that was met with violence in Jackson, Miss., in 1961.

New Mexicans from civil rights advocacy groups like SWOP, Enlace Comunitario, the Martin Luther King Dream Team and Somos un Pueblo Unido, will launch the bus tour from Albuquerque and visit at least six other U.S. cities until reaching their destination: the U.S. Social Forum, which is expected to draw some 1,000 attendees in Atlanta on Wednesday.

“During the tour, we’ll be meeting up with allies in other cities for rallies, press conferences, meetings with legislators and to even do community work,” SWOP communications organizer Jo Ann Gutierrez-Bejar said.

The caravan will make stops in San Antonio, Texas; Houston; Lake Charles, La.; New Orleans; Jackson, Miss.; Selma, Ala., and finally, Atlanta.

“Our primary mission is to bridge the nation’s democratic divide,” Gutierrez-Bejar said. “We live in a country with structural inequities. Lowincome people of color are divided amongst each other.

“We need to bridge the gap between us with this tour and realize we’re all fighting the same struggles and seeking the same opportunities,” she said.

“We want to look at how certain policies in this nation are tailored for the rich by the rich. We want to get the poor involved so policies are tailored to help get them out of poverty.”

Organizers say that as the freedom riders of the 1960s brought a new vision for the South based on desegregation, this year’s “People’s Caravan” will demonstrate that another United States is possible — one that bridges racial, geographic and cultural divides and moves beyond the status quo “pay to play” politics.

“We are going to Atlanta to build a unified voice of the people,” said Agnes Rivera, New York’s Community Voices Heard leader and a caravan participant.

“We want to make connections across the country to create a domino effect of action and organizing.

“On the caravan and at the forum, we will discuss our social safety net, jobs and public housing,” she said. “We’ll learn from each other and strengthen our work for another world.”

Sandra Ortsman, a member of Albuquerque’s immigrantrights group Enlace Comunitario, said costs, harsh working conditions and distance typically keep the poor apart and away from organizing opportunities.

“This caravan will allow us to unite,” she said. “It will give us a chance to form a partnership and come up with strategies and solutions to do away with injustice and inequities in the United States.”