March On Wall Street South – Mobilization Info

By Diane Sweet — August 30, 2012

There’s just a few days left until the March on Wall Street South mobilization kicks off! See below for a schedule of events and many other updates. You can also find transportation leaving from your area to bring folks to Charlotte!

Schedule of Events

Saturday, September 1: Festivaliberación begins the mobilization! There are many great workshops being planned, and an amazing concert at night featuring local artists, Jasiri X, and Rebel Diaz. Check out this great video Jasiri X just recorded to help get the word out!

And we’ve got some exciting news: the Undocubus will also be arriving at the festival in the evening and joining us for the march the next day! You won’t want to miss this!

Sunday, September 2: Thousands will flood the streets of Charlotte for the March on Wall Street South, beginning at 11am in Frazier Park. We’ll march together at 1pm to the big banks, and past the sites where the Democratic National Convention will meet during the week. We say: YES to jobs, housing, healthcare, education, the environment, workers rights and justice, NO to wars, cutbacks, racism and bigotry, and deportations.

The main targets of the march include Bank of America’s world headquarters, Wells Fargo’s eastern headquarters, the Time Warner Cable Arena, and the Bank of America Stadium. Additionally, there will be two stops along the route for a peoples’ tribunal and speak out against these banks and corporations. We’ll stop in front of the international headquarters of Bank of America and hear from people who have been directly impacted by home foreclosures, student debt, and BofA’s bankrolling of the private prison system, war, and environmental destruction. Then, we’ll stop in front of the headquarters of Duke Energy. We’ll hear from folks impacted by Duke’s funding of dirty energy, and how Duke funds the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the right-wing bill mill.

Monday, September 3, 1pm: We’ll join the Labor Day Parade in the morning, and gather in the afternoon for the historic Southern Workers Assembly, starting at 1pm at Wedgewood Baptist Church. More info on the Southern Workers Assembly:

Join Southern unions, workers organizations, civil/human rights groups, immigrant rights groups, unemployed, young workers, faith and community for a workers speak-out that uplifts our on-the-ground actual workers’ rights struggles in the US South.

The Southern working class must encourage our workers and organizations to have an independent presence at the Democratic National Convention as an opportunity to discuss, plan and organize around our own working class needs and struggles for independent political action as we continue to challenge Right-To-Work (for less) & Taft-Hartley laws, low wages, denial of collective bargaining, and workers’ human rights connected with the historical demands against the South’s legacy of Jim Crow laws, anti-immigrant scapegoating and racism.

The Southern region is the least unionized region in the country. NC is the single least unionized state and is home of Wall Street South as headquarters of Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank East with the largest concentration of finance capital outside NYC. Workers must let the big banks, corporations and both parties know that we as workers will continue building our powerful Southern movement that addresses our needs as workers and not corporate greed! Enough is enough! We will Organize, Unionize and fightback!

Monday, September 3, 6-11pm: Sin Papeles y Sin Miedo: Festival de canto, poesía y arte with the Undocubus at Mexican Restauran Fiesta Jalisco (5317 E. Independence Blvd)

Wednesday, September 5, 6-10pm: UndocuNation in North Carolina, an artist showcase organized by CultureStrike and the Center for New Community at the Neighborhood Theatre (511 E. 36th Street)

September 4 -6: Affinity group and other actions

Convergence Space

The new convergence space is now open at Area 15 (514 E. 15th St, at the corner of North Davidson and 15th Sts)! We’ve been hard at work getting it all set up and ready for all the folks that will be traveling to Charlotte for the March on Wall Street South and the other actions around the DNC. For those coming into town looking to get involved, the convergence space is the place to go to get plugged in and get active.

Make a much-needed contribution to the March on Wall Street South today!

March Contingents

Many groups and organizations have been collaborating to pull together dynamic, struggle-based contingents during the March on Wall Street South. At the march, each contingent will have an identifying banner and signs to find them and march together. Here are the contingents that will be marching with us:

Unemployed workers
Organize the South! Workers Rights are Human Rights!
No Papers No Fear/Sin Papeles y Sin Miedo (Undocumented/Immigrants Rights organized by the Undocubus)
LGBTQ
Housing is a Right! Stop Home Foreclosures!
Youth and Students (including Stop the School to Prison Pipeline section)
Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad (including No War/No Warming, anti-drone, and Free All Political Prisoners sections)

Program

We have a very exciting program of speakers and cultural performers from across NC, the South, and the U.S. working on a range of struggles. Here’s a few of the freedom fighters who will be joining us at the March:

Yen Alcala, Occupy Charlotte
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Cindy Foster, President of the Southern Piedmont Central Labor Council
Jaribu Hill, Mississippi Workers Center
the Undocubus
Efia Nwangaza, Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination
John Heuer, Veterans for Peace
Monica Embrey, Greenpeace
Larry Hales, Peoples Power Assembly
Fernando Figueroa, Coalition to March on the RNC
Larry Holmes, Peoples Power Assembly
Clarence Thomas, ILWU 100
Rev. CD Witherspoon, Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Victor Toro, May 1 Coalition for Worker and Immigrants Rights
Sarah Shanks, Charlotte Clinic Defense
Marilyn Levin, United National Antiwar Coalition
and more!