Marching for California Again
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By Gavin Riley With Sunday's 15-mile walk from Livingston to Turlock, the March for California's Future is past the two-thirds mark in both distance and days of travel. The March is our quest to start a groundswell of support for fundamental change in the once "golden" state.
Since leaving Bakersfield on March 6th with our core group of seven marchers, we have covered 265 miles as of Sunday and stopped at 22 different sites in the San Joaquin Valley on our way to the state capitol in Sacramento, where we will hold a massive rally on April 21. More than 1,500 Californians have marched with us part of the way, and more will join us as we walk the rest of the way.
We draw inspiration for this walk from the famous marches for justice in the 1960s and particularly the 1966 march from Delano to Sacramento by Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers. We are covering much of the same ground.
The farm workers of California had become the invisible element in the great agricultural boom of the Valley - and the large agribusiness corporations liked it just fine. Exploitation translated into higher profits. Most Californians were either unaware of the problems (no minimum wage, no overtime, no collective bargaining rights, long hours, no medical care and poor working conditions) or preferred to ignore it.
Chavez's march up California Highway 99 to the Capitol grew stronger by the day and became a visible picture of the unseen costs associated with the fruit and vegetables we bought everyday. That march did not end the problem, but it was the tipping point in changing the dynamic for farm workers.
Today we are in need of another game changer in California. Lawmakers in Sacramento look inept and are viewed as a laughingstock by the whole country. This is due to the