Only 39 days to go until our first March on Wall St. South event, the Festivaliberación, kicks off! Rebel Diaz and Jasiri-X will be joining us for the festival on Saturday, September 1, along with many other incredible artists and young freedom fighters for a day of workshops, spoken word, speakouts, and discussions led by youth and immigrant activists.
Planning for the March on Wall Street South on Sunday, September 2 is moving steadily forward! Everyday, we’re hearing from more and more folks across the South and the U.S. making plans to join us in the streets. Organizing centers are being set up, events are planned in many different cities, and fliers are going up in communities all over the place! Stay tuned about some big announcements about who will be with us in Charlotte in the coming weeks!
Things are also getting set for the Southern Workers Assembly, set for Monday, September 3 (Labor Day). Fliers for the Southern Workers Assembly are available at our site, and look for more announcements about the assembly in the days ahead.
Here’s how you can help out and get involved!
1. Sign up to be an organizing center – Can you help bring folks from your area to Charlotte for the March on Wall Street South and other actions taking place around the Democratic National Convention? Let us know today!
2. Make a donation — The two corporate parties have the banks and the 1% to rely on for funding, but all we have is each other. We are still a long way off from reaching our goal of $10,000 to make the march and other events happen. Please consider making a donation today, circulating this appeal through your networks, or holding a fundraiser in your area.
3. Save the date! August 11 Coalition Meeting — The Coalition to March on Wall Street South will be holding a general organizing meeting in Charlotte on Saturday, August 11. There will be lots of important discussion at this meeting about pulling together trainings, plugging volunteers into all the various tasks to help build the march, and much more. The location is still TBA, but we’ll be sending out more info about this meeting within the next week.
4. Attend weekly local organizing meetings in Charlotte — If you’re in the Charlotte-area, come out to our weekly organizing meetings every Monday at 7pm at the Charlotte Solidarity Center (Suite 10c at Area 15 | 514 E. 15th Street, Charlotte, NC)
5. Spread the word on Facebook, Twitter! – Help us spread the word by liking the Coalition on Facebook, following us on Twitter, and inviting all your friends to the event!
Here are more updates about what the Coalition has been up to in the last week:
July 18 Press Conference: ‘We Need To Fight!’
Charlotte area activists joined with national leaders from various organizations July 18 to participate in a press conference at the Charlotte police headquarters. Speakers included George Friday of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Michael Zytkow of Occupy Charlotte, Ben Carroll, a spokesperson for the March on Wall Street South, Teresa Gutierrez and Victor Toro of the May 1st Coalition for Worker and Immigrant Rights and Larry Hales of the Bail Out The People Movement. Numerous activists and media attended.
The press conference was in response to the recent announcements by city and federal police agencies about ‘security’ preparations for the DNC, the targeting of local African American activist Mr. Gifford Cordova by various police agencies, and to hear from national leaders of immigrant rights and economic justice organizations who are preparing to mobilize transportation to the March on Wall Street South and other actions in September.
“The March on Wall Street South is needed to show the working class that we do need to fight no matter what party is going to be in power in the upcoming election. We need jobs, housing, healthcare and education and it’s a necessity to show the politicians that we are not going to give up on our rights and that we’re going to fight for them,” Dinae Anderson a 16-year-old youth activist from the New York chapter of the International Action Center told March on Wall St. South organizers July 18
Added Anderson: “Charlotte is a city where so many big buildings like Bank of America, Duke Energy and Chiquita are so it shows that we are in the center of Wall Street South and that things don’t change when you come down from New York where there’s so many big bankers and the New York Stock Exchange. We gotta make our voices heard. They got to hear us loud and proud.”
In These Streets coverage: http://tinyurl.com/c88ekel
WI Bail Out The People Movement photos: http://tinyurl.com/6thhzdt
Delegation visits North Carolina
From July 15-20 a delegation from the New York-New Jersey area that included Victor Toro and Teresa Gutierrez of the May 1st Coalition for Worker and Immigrant Rights, Dinae Anderson of the International Action Center and Larry Hales of the Bail Out The People Movement visited North Carolina. They met with members of Black Workers for Justice, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, the Durham Solidarity Center and with various activists in Charlotte and elsewhere.
Besides participating in the press conference, the evening of July 18 Toros, Gutierrez and Hales were featured speakers at the event “Building Unity: Lessons from May Day 2012 and DNC Demos in 2008,” at the Charlotte Solidarity Center. A screening of the new documentary “5 Days in Denver” was screened followed by talks and discussion.
Duke and Progress Energy merge, CEO gets $44.7 million for 20 minutes
As if we needed another reason to march on Wall Street South on Sunday, September 2, the corporate coup pulled off in the last few weeks by Duke Energy gave us just that!
Duke and Progress Energy have been in the process of merging for more than a year to form the largest utility company in the country and the second largest in the world. They’ve also been pushing to raise rates through the roof to finance laying off thousands of workers in the process. Activists have also been organizing against Duke for years for their involvement in the dirty coal industry.
After just 20 minutes after the ink dried on the merger, former Progress CEO Bill Johnson, who was set to be the President and CEO of the combined company, was fired and given nearly $45 million!
Read more about this, Duke’s drive to reap greater and greater profits, and all of their dirty coal practices here: http://quitcoal.org/blog/saga-duke%E2%80%99s-dirty-business
For more information and to help with organizing, call 704-266-0362, Twitter@WallStSouth, email: info@wallstsouth.org, view website www.wallstsouth.org or visit the Charlotte Solidarity Center at 516 E. 15th Street, Charlotte North Carolina (Office Hours Noon-5 p.m. M-F).
###
Pingback: 5 Weeks Until March on Wall St South (Sept. 1-6, Charlotte, NC) | Wisconsin Bail Out the People Movement