California Central Valley/Valle Central de California
Journey for Justice
[Jornada por la Justicia]
Journey for Justice is a ten-day event that begins in Sacramento on April 12, 2007 with Sally Lieber Assembly Speaker pro Tempore taking the first step of more than 300 hundred mile journey involving many people across the central valley.The spirit of hope and unity the organizers built in 2006 is alive and well. We have seen a growing movement for health care and immigrant rights in the Valley, victories by the homeless in Fresno, and the repudiation of the status quo by voters in November 2006.
However, in spite of these gains, the reality is that the conditions that moved us to action last year are still the same or getting worse. The poor are getting poorer. Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the Kuehl single payer universal health care bill in 2006, and now more people than ever are without health insurance. Schwarzenegger's 2007 plan would force all Californians to buy expensive insurance policies with deductibles of $5000 or higher for limited coverage.
Despite the 2006 upsurge in our immigrant rights movement, the only legislative result was a 700-mile border wall, and ICE raids are now taking place in Merced, Madera, and throughout the Valley. Police violence and persecution of the homeless has increased, not decreased. California prisons continue to be overcrowded and rapidly expanding, especially in the Valley.
The need for the Journey for Justice is greater than ever. As Rev. Floyd Harris of National Network in Action explained, "We need to educate to motivate, to organize to mobilize, to energize to take communities to a higher level." We need to build committees in every area, leave literature, educate the leaders, and help empower the communities to fight their battles more effectively.
This year we decided on the theme of "Healing our Communities" for Journey for Justice 2007. This focuses our journey on the right to health care, the most sacred of all our economic human rights. Health care is about saving lives, and all human life is sacred. The right to health care brings together all the diverse communities of our Valley and our State. At the same, time it will be the most volatile; hard-fought issue at both the state and national level over the next few years. It will shape the fate of our government itself: will it continue to carry out the interests of insurance, pharmaceutical, and other corporations, or can we reclaim our democracy and force it to do the will of the people?
We will link the Journey for Justice to the statewide One Care Now campaign and Sheila Kuehl's SB 840, as well as to the national struggle to adopt the H.R. 676 single payer universal health care plan. At the same time, we will address broader issues of community well-being: healing from the divisiveness of the anti-immigrant movement, healing from poverty, healing our youth, healing from police violence, healing from the destruction and waste of the prison industrial complex, and healing from environmental wounds.
Our goal is to educate and unite our movement. Unity is not a paper agreement that can be torn up and discarded. It is a living, breathing relationship between peoples with common goals, a unity in spirit. We create it through talking circles, worship services, prayers, forums, and through action. The Journey for Justice is a sacred journey and we urge you to join us.
"Even though I am on dialysis, I have been fully supported by my dialysis center to embark on this journey. The energy I am using to participate is not just for me and my family but all my brothers, sisters, parents and grandparents. It is for all Californians who are not able to receive the level of care that I do." Robert Mansfield (Merced) age 39 on dialysis since July 06.
For more information as the Journey progresses please call statewide coordinator Dr. Salvador Sandoval at (209) 631-6461.
Co-sponsors of the Journey:
- Centro Bellas Artes, Fresno
- Comite No Nos Vamos, Fresno
- Fresno County Peace and Freedom Party
- National Network in Action, Fresno
- Merced Labor Party
- CHAM Deliverance Ministry, San Jose
- California Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign
- Direct Action Anti-Authoritarian Alliance, Modesto
- Fresno Center for Non-violence
- Community Alliance, Fresno
- Loaves & Fishes - Stockton
- Project Voice/ AFSC - Stockton
- Organization of Farm workers of California -Stockton
- Association of Immigrants from San Marcos Evangelista, Jalisco - Stockton
- Association of Braceros of Northern California - Stockton
- Mexican Honorific Commission - Stockton
- Dr. Ali Rezapour - Fresno
- San Joaquin Valley LULAC - Carlos Caberra
- Reedley Peace Center
- LUPE - Tulare County
- Raza Network - Sacramento
- Zapatistas Network - Sacramento
- Justice Reform Coalition - Sacramento
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