Jobs to Move America hosted a Learning Trip to Alabama for our supports to gain an understanding of the labor and civil rights movement in Birmingham and Anniston, and what is being done to create good jobs in the area. Here’s a visual recap from that trip.
About the Trip
Join Jobs to Move America from September 10-14 for a transformative trip through Alabama, the center of the civil rights movement and the growing Black-led worker justice movement. This is an opportunity to significantly contribute to the worker organizing and corporate accountability fight in the Deep South, and take a deeper dive into the history, culture and community building of the Southern labor movement.
Alabama has a rich and complex civil rights and labor history. It’s important to see it and learn in person in order to truly understand the significance of organizing in the South, and the promise of what is possible when we all join the movement.
Trip Itinerary
- Birmingham, JMA’s Southern base, is steeped in civil rights and worker organizing history. See the vision for a worker organizing center and meet coalition and community partners who are leading the new Southern worker movement from within.
- Anniston, where the Ku Klux Klan bombed and beat a bus full of Freedom Riders in 1961; industrial giant Monsanto knowingly poisoned residents from toxic chemical production; and site of the New Flyer electric vehicle factory where JMA negotiated a historic Community Benefits Agreement for thousands of workers and the community.
- Bessemer, to meet former Amazon workers who fought to organize the warehouse in the effort to improve exploitative working conditions.
- Along the way, learn the history of Black worker organizing that has led to the movement of today, spoken through community, civil rights and labor leaders on the ground fighting for a better Alabama.
Read an interview with three JMA funders who attended the trip here.