Local 23’s Young Workers Committee led a delegation of members and casuals who joined a Juneteenth march in Tacoma called, “Stop Killing Us!” The event was organized by Lincoln High School students who belong to the Black Student Union.
Marchers gathered at Tacoma’s Wapato Park for the photo below that shows three of the student-organizers up-front wearing black shirts with a goldcolored slogan that read, “NO JUSTICE! NO PEACE! 2020.”
Local 23 Young Workers Committee members learned about the action on an Instagram account because many high school students no longer use Facebook, which they consider to be something “for old people.”
Local 23 activists have gotten recent props and praise from the community, thanks to the June 9th action in memory of George Floyd and the Juneteenth stand-down on the 19th. Out-of-town reporters contacted Local 23 activists for interviews, including the Majority publication from the Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) East Bay chapter and author/professor Peter Cole, who wrote an article about the ILWU’s anti-racism work that appeared in In These Times.
While Local 23’s Young Workers Committee didn’t initiate the march, they did bring it to the attention of local leadership and promoted it to the membership. Some Local 23 members went up to Seattle for Local 19’s Juneteenth action, and others were busy attending Local 23’s “stop-work” union meeting.
“Brian Skiffington and I missed the first speakers at the rally because we were at the stop work meeting, but we were able to join the march after it started,” said Local 23’s Zack Pattin. “We caught-up with Paul Malleck and Colin McGee from Local 5 who are both Aramark workers at Evergreen State College. They were happy to see all the A, B, and casual members from Local 23, and we even met one new casual who came on his own and introduced himself when he saw us at the end of the march.”
Another young worker, Local 23 ID Casual Nyef Mohamed, said the Juneteenth march meant a lot to him. “Marching the streets for Juneteenth in the city where I grew up was a powerful moment, and seeing that the action was organized by local high school students was inspiring,” he said, adding that, “Juneteenth needs to be a national holiday.”