"No to Arizona, Yes to Reform"
North Texas Jobs with Justice proudly joined approximately 30,000 marchers for immigration reform on May 1 in downtown Dallas. Television news said there were 114 similar marches across the nation, and that Dallas was one of the largest. Jobs with Justice supporters Walt Harrison and Joshua Purcell have posted a number of their own pictures.
The probability of rain reduced the crowd, but a number of issues balooned it:
- Arizona's new "investigate anybody" law
- Similar, also racist and illegal, local laws in small towns near Dallas
- The "Dream Act" to help immigrant students finish school and carry out their ambitions
- The pending possibility of immigration reform finally passing in Congress
- Efforts to stop letting I.C.E. separate families
The Mega-March committee had been holding organizing meetings in the Tejano restaurant, 100 W Davis in Oak Cliff, for months. The Labor Council for Latin American Advancement did not seem to play a role, but the League of United Latin American Citizens, led in general by Dallas political figure Domingo Garcia, was prominent. Local churches and religious leaders committed their congregations and buses to the effort. The Dallas Morning News, which has a well-earned reputation for opposing anything that working people do, gave the march a big boost, as they did in 2006, by running several positive articles before the march. They also uncharacteristically gave the giant march good coverage in the Sunday paper while not, for once, treating the tiny anti-immigrant protest group equally.
The Dallas Area Rapid Transit authority increased the frequency of trains to downtown and let people ride free! The march route was changed to go down the newly-named Cesar Chavez Boulevard (formerly Central) and ended by filling up the Dallas City Hall Plaza.
As in the giant 2006 march, Jobs with Justice attempted to build a united labor contingent, but struck out in the effort. If there were union delegations, they apparently marched separately, as they did in 2006.
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