The Freedom Bus' first event in Atlanta was a rally in the city's downtown commercial area. Atlanta has become renowned for its policies which criminalize homelessness, policies aimed at removing homeless people !
from public areas downtown. The rally and the tribunal later in the evening were organized by a large number of organizations, including the Georgia Human Rights Union (an organization of current and former welfare recipients), the Center for Human Rights Education, Project South, the Georgia Citizens Coalition on Hunger, the Georgia Rural-Urban Summit, and many others.
Like our other stops, tens of thousands of welfare recipients have been cut from the welfare roles in Georgia. "People are coming up to us now whose food stamps have been cut off and are having to go without food. We demand our human rights!" said Carolyn Pittman, leader of the Georgia Human Rights Union.
At the tribunal over 200 people listened to testimony after testimony of economic !
human rights violations. One woman's mother didn't have access to adequate health care (needed medication, etc.) and died as a result. A representative of the Steelworker's Union (and member of the Labor Party) told us how thousands had been laid off from the steel industry in recent years. The story echoed the steel and autoworkers in Lorain, Ohio, the coal mines of West Virginia, the vacant factories in Kensington, and so many other stories across the country: Since 1971, one factory has gone from 1,500 workers to only 300, but produces three times as much steel. Now, the Atlantic Steel plant is shutting down in December, eliminating what jobs are left. Like other industries, the steel industry is replacing living wage union jobs with high technology and low-wag!
e jobs.
The panel of judges included civil rights leader Reverend C.T. Vivian, Stuart Acuff of the Atlanta Labor Council, and Tomeka Wynn of the Georgia Human Rights Union. C.T. Vivian, who was a leader in Martin Luther King's "Poor People's March," presented the judgement in a stirring speech. "In the richest country in the world," he said, "it is not only irresponsible, it is immoral" to have the kind of devastating poverty we are facing. We not only need to recognize our rights, we need to act to secure them, to make our government responsible for ensuring our rights. "When the 1% who "make it" refuse the right to live to the other 99%, the 99% must stand up and change things." This campaign, he continue!
d, represents the next steps of this struggle, a growing movement for economic human rights.
The Freedom Bus' first event in Atlanta was a rally in the city's downtown commercial area. Atlanta has become renowned for its policies which criminalize homelessness, policies aimed at removing homeless people !
from public areas downtown. The rally and the tribunal later in the evening were organized by a large number of organizations, including the Georgia Human Rights Union (an organization of current and former welfare recipients), the Center for Human Rights Education, Project South, the Georgia Citizens Coalition on Hunger, the Georgia Rural-Urban Summit, and many others. 
At the tribunal over 200 people listened to testimony after testimony of economic !
human rights violations. One woman's mother didn't have access to adequate health care (needed medication, etc.) and died as a result. A representative of the Steelworker's Union (and member of the 
The panel of judges included civil rights leader Reverend C.T. Vivian, Stuart Acuff of the Atlanta Labor Council, and Tomeka Wynn of the Georgia Human Rights Union. C.T. Vivian, who was a leader in Martin Luther King's "Poor People's March," presented the judgement in a stirring speech. "In the richest country in the world," he said, "it is not only irresponsible, it is immoral" to have the kind of devastating poverty we are facing. We not only need to recognize our rights, we need to act to secure them, to make our government responsible for ensuring our rights. "When the 1% who "make it" refuse the right to live to the other 99%, the 99% must stand up and change things." This campaign, he continue!
d, represents the next steps of this struggle, a growing movement for economic human rights.