March for Economic Human Rights

everyone has the right to food, clothing, housing, living wage jobs, health care and education

Waking at 6 am, the residents of Bushville prepared for the moment we have been working for all this time - The March for Economic Human Rights. Last minute meetings reinforced the plans to keep the marchers safe, the march peaceful, and the discipline to get our message across.

The March for Economic Human Rights was the only march that had applied for a permit and been denied in either Philadelphia for the Republican Convention or Los Angeles for the Democratic Convention. It was also the only march led by poor people, from both Philadelphia and around the country. We were determined to get the voice of the poor heard, and testify to the human rights abuses happening in this country today.

With the eyes of the world on Philadelphia for the Republican National Convention, we have been raising the issues of poverty and economic human rights through our Tent City, Bushville, as well as through our "reality tours". Media from all over the world have been covering our events. There was standing room only on our reality tours. You can take a reality tour on-line and bear witness to the plight and the fight of poor and homeless people in America today. All of this activity has been building up to our March for Economic Human Rights.

We started the day with a prayer service and a pledge of non-violence. As a bus came to pick up the children, the rest of us marched from Bushville to public transportation. Arriving at the south side of City Hall, a substantial crowd had gathered over an hour before the rally was slated to begin. In a strong show of the unity of the employed and unemployed, several unions joined us on our march, including representatives from the National Union of Hospital and Healthcare Employees 1199c, AFSCME District Councils 33 and 47, as well as The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way, The New Jersey Industrial Union Council, United Electrical Workers, Philaposh, and Jobs with Justice.

The rally started as thousands of marchers and hundreds of media journalists gathered around city hall. Rene Maxwell from the Chicago Coalition to Protect Public Housing led us in song, and children from the Kensington Welfare Rights Union led chants.

Pete Matthews, leader of District Council 33, spoke in lively support of the march: "This is a just cause," he explained, and related that DC 33 supported everything about the March, praising the efforts of KWRU to link labor with the unemployed.

Henry Nicholas, president of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees 1199c also spoke about the necessity of march in the economic climate of today, where the economic "boom" benefits only a few, and the rest of us are working harder than ever to make ends meet.

Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization of Women also spoke. She questioned the level of democracy possible in a country where 1% of the population controls 95% of the wealth, and that figure increases on a daily basis.

So many people arrived at city hall for the march, that we were flowing into the streets. We started the march early, and our March Security Team, wearing orange vests, organized the crowd of thousands into an orderly single-file line. We did this to ensure the safety of the marchers, the integrity of our message, and project the level of organization that we have developed. Leading the march were children from the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign and activists from ADAPT, many in wheelchairs, as well as the Deaf Committee for Universal Human Rights from Ohio and Creative Access from Philadelphia. In the front lines, they let the message be heard that they were some of those most affected by the violations of economic human rights in this country, and that our march was about real people with real families.

Following, behind our big "Economic Human Rights" banner marched Cheri Honkala, Liz Ortiz and Mariluz Gonzalez, Guillermo Santos, and Katie Engle of KWRU, Barbara Rundle of the Deaf Committee for Universal Human Rights, Henry Nicholas of 1199C, Pete Matthews of DC 33, Bob Brown of the Labor Party, Bill Kane of the New Jersey Industrial Union Council, Martin Longeria of from Mexico City, representing the Continental Front of Commmunity Organizations and Jim Moran of Philaposh, among others.

We had no permit, but we were determined to march anyway. The march was covered with signs proclaiming "The poor will be heard!," our logo: "Disappeared in America: hiding the poor," as well as "healthcare is a right," "housing is a right," and "right to a living wage jobs." The first steps of the march were full of tension, between the burgeoning crowd, the swarm of media, and the question of whether we were going to be allowed to march past a few steps. After a couple minutes, the outcome was still uncertain. We were forming people into a single file line, which was a slow process, made even slower by the media in front of us.

Slowly, it became clear that we were going to be able to march more than a few steps. After almost an hour, people were still filing out from City Hall into the march line. March Security ran back and forth, helping the police control traffic and making sure the marchers stayed organized. The march stretched for many, many blocks as thousands of people walked down Broad Street, chanting. Some estimates of the number of people on the march were as high as 15,000 people.

After reaching the First Union Center, we concluded our march with a rally at Franklin Delano Roosevelt park. We payed tribune to Eleanor Roosevelt, the mother of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. People also shared their stories and testimonies, their struggles over housing, healthcare, and quality education for their children. Our march was a great success. The voice of the poor was heard in all corners of the globe.

We returned to Bushville and spent the rest of the night taking down our tents and cleaning up the lot.