We need to keep ringing the bell, wake people up to get our democracy together. Farm workers are like a symbol, and it is good that people are paying attention.
Once you see the outcomes and the results, and you see how many people are helped and benefitting, you want to keep on doing it because it’s so simple.
In fact, the corporations are driving out the competition and it is not getting better, especially when they are not paying income taxes. Thank goodness for the social media out there, because we sure can’t count on the corporate media to get the word out.
As organizations, we have to find ways to create more opportunities, especially for our young people. A lot of corporations, they have to make opportunities for young people – create internships, for example, even if it’s only half-time.
I was very fortunate to have known Fred Ross Sr., who was organizing the Community Service Organization (CSO) way back in the late 50’s and early 60’s. I was able to work with him.
I want to say to mothers out there, you know, take your children to marches. Take them to meetings because this is a way that they can become strong, and they understand what politics is all about because they are actually living it.
Especially as a teenager, I was always being racially profiled by the police. You just see all this injustice, and you want to do something about it, but you don’t know how.
The thing about nonviolence is that it spreads. When you get people to participate in nonviolent action – whether it’s a fast, a march, a boycott, or a picket line – people hear you, people see you, people are learning from that action.
I had been a Girl Scout from the time I was 8 to the time I was 18 years old. I had belonged to my church organization and youth groups. But, you never really found a way that you could make a change.
My children grew up very resourceful and strong in spite of them having to live with different families and that I had to drag them all over the country with me.
