US Social Forum March Comes to Benton Harbor

Yesterday I joined friends from our Jobs with Justice chapter to head up to Benton Harbor for a rally and march with the intrepid team of activists on the "March to Fulfill the Dream"-- that is the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that all people of all races in this country would have both the right to vote and the right to food, shelter, and other basic needs.
Many in this caravan of activists have been on the road since April 4, the anniversary of King's death, when the march started in New Orleans.

They've been visiting communities around the country to tell them about the US Social Forum and the campaign for economic human rights in the United states. Along the way, they've joined local activists in struggles against housing foreclosures, against outsourcing and job cuts, to resist school closings and other social spending cuts. In Benton Harbor, they protested at Whirlpool, where 130 workers have just lost their jobs. Laid-off workers from the Whirlpool plant Evansville drove 6 hours to join the rally.

Rosemary Nevils-Williams of the Minnesota Bailout Coalition and Delores Pinto, who came with her pastor from St. Petersburg, Florida told me that what they have seen on their journey inspires them as they work their way to Detroit to join many thousands of other activists working to build strategies and networks to make Dr. King's Dream a reality.

More information on the March to Fulfill the Dream is at:
http://www.ussf2010.org/node/68
and http://old.economichumanrights.org/USSF2010/index.shtml