Black Belt Justice: Crucial Interracial
Alliances Forged In Southern Labor Groups, Kim Diehl,
ColorLines
— Kim Diehl of ColorLines reports on new alliances
in racial and labor justice campaigns. After 19 years of radical
work, Black Workers for Justice (BWFJ) is making vital connections
with the Latino community in the South, the region where the United
States’ appetite for exploitable labor and free trade began. BWFJ
is a community- and workplace-based organization in the
southeastern United States that responded in the summer of 1999
with a flood relief project that distributed supplies to hundreds
of black, Latino, and Native American families who were neglected
by the governmental programs. The connections made during the
disaster relief laid the groundwork for political coalitions. ‘It
was logical for us to look for an alliance with the Latino
community and try to find common ground there,’ says BWFJ member
Ajamu Dillahunt. ‘If our efforts did nothing else but help emerge a
perspective that both communities can use to relate to each other,
I think this alliance would have served a very important
role.’
–Amanda
Luker
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