The Journey for Justice traveled from the mean street corners of the California Central Valley to the lofty halls of power from April 14-21.
A grassroots caravan of poor and working people, its message was to house the homeless, heal the sick, free the prisoners, and clean up the air pollution that is strangling the Valley. As Rev. Floyd Harris of the National Network in Action stated, its purpose was "to educate to motivate, to organize to mobilize, to energize to take communities to a higher level." Everywhere it sought to empower, unite, and encourage communities to demand government accountability for the basic welfare of the people.
California's Central Valley is the second poorest area in America after Mississippi. At the same time, it is the most conservative area and blocks the movement for justice in the entire state.
In Merced, the Journey brought together environmental and health care leaders, Labor Party members, and community ministries. It met with the homeless in Sacramento, Stockton, Turlock, and Fresno. It spoke to city council members in Merced and Fresno and legislators in Sacramento. It met with people fighting clinic closures in Tulare County.
Everywhere in the Valley people are battling just to survive. In Turlock we met a grandmother who had been living in her car for three years and struggling with diabetes, because her insulin medication kept spoiling from lack of refrigeration. In Fresno we found the homeless living in a large tent city on G Street, not as a protest, but because there was nowhere else to go.
Dr. Ali Razapour spoke to the Journey on the movement for a national health care plan. He described how our society is like the human body. If one organ is sick, the whole body suffers. In society, if one person is suffering, then emotionally and spiritually we all feel it, or else we are not truly human.
Dr. Razapour invited us to a candlelight vigil that night for the students slain at Virginia Tech. He spoke out against the government mental health cuts that contributed to the tragedy.
Pastor Scott Wagers pointed out in Fresno that although our numbers are few today, and Pharaoh's power is great, he saw new Moseses sprouting up everywhere. Moses won the victory in the end, he reminded us, because God hears the cries of our people.
The Fresno homeless and their allies showed us the way. Together for over a year they fought outrageous persecution, marched, testified, organized, wrote articles, filed lawsuits, spoke out on the Homeless Marathon, and used the internet. As result, on the very day we were there, they forced the stiff-necked Mayor of Fresno to relent and agree against his will to meet their most basic of human needs--portable toilets.
Their tactic of demanding that government meet their needs is the key to the whole movement for housing, health care, and ending poverty. The Journey for Justice vowed to spread that lesson throughout the Valley in the years to come. "I see a vision of justice fighters stretched in a human chain all the way from Bakersfield to Sacramento," said Gloria Hernandez, one of the Journey organizers.
We Need Universal Health Care
By Ben Cardoza, Journey for Justice
I have been living with type one diabetes since 1976. Having worked 30 years non-stop, I was blessed to have health insurance, care of my employers. Some years ago I lost my medical insurance and was forced to rely on Valley Medical Center to keep my diabetes under control with an AIC hemoglobin averaging at least 6.5 or 7. The current condition of our medical care system is devastating, thanks to our insurance companies and state, government, and local politicians, and of course, pharmaceutical corporation thieves. Our children, senior citizens, and all those throughout the USA without any medical insurance have surpassed a state of emergency. It is time to provide all human beings with effective medical insurance, and even more so for those who are homeless.
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