The bulk of the demonstrators were African-Americans. The majority were working people spanning many generations. Thousands of college students and smaller numbers of high school students also took part. Union contingents with banners and handmade signs marked the action throughout the day. Among the most militant groups of workers were longshoremen who have recently been involved in battles against the bosses for union recognition and better wages and working conditions throughout Florida's east coast. Many of the protesters had taken part in other social struggles in the region.

"The future has no time for racism," said a handmade sign held by Manny Whyshoe, an electrician from Tallahassee and member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He had painted a clock on his placard marking the date and time the Tallahassee march began. "The winds of change are blowing again," Whyshoe said, reflecting the combative attitude of many protesters. "You see it in the numbers and the mood of the people. Here today, just like in South Carolina not too long ago." Whyshoe had driven with coworkers and friends to join the 50,000-strong march in Columbia, South Carolina, on Martin Luther King Day demanding the Confederate battle flag no longer be flown over that state's capitol building.

The Florida march was called by the Coalition of Conscience, among the principal sponsors of which are the state's AFL-CIO and NAACP. It was organized in response to an executive order Gov. John Ellis Bush issued in November eliminating affirmative action programs in college admissions in Florida's 10 public universities and in state contracts. The mass protest took place on the opening day of Florida's legislature, as Bush was delivering his state-of-the-state address. The Republican governor vowed to stick by his "One Florida" initiative, fueling the anger, and the determination to fight, of many protesters.

"It's not up to him to erase affirmative action with a stroke of his pen," said Rosa Peoples, who works at Florida's Department of Revenue and is a member of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). "He may not back off, as he says, but neither will we." Peoples had joined the 2,000-strong march organized by Florida A&M university students in Tallahassee February 8.  
 

Opposition forced public hearings

More than 4,000 had turned out for a public hearing in Miami February 3 to show their opposition to the so-called One Florida plan, and hundreds had turned up for an earlier similar hearing in Tampa. Bush had conceded those meetings after state representative Anthony Hill and state senator Kendrick Meek, both Democrats, staged a sit-in at the governor's office in mid-January demanding more public input into the matter.

"Bush discovered a lot more opposition than he expected," said Jean Mareus, president of the Haitian-Boukan club at the Miami-Dade Community College (MDCC), who came to Tallahassee with a busload of his fellow students from Miami. "We are 100 percent for affirmative action. Without it many of us would have never made it into any university, regardless of how capable we are."

"Even if the governor says no to our demands, after this march, we won't back off the struggle," said Elsie Hilaire, a nursing student also from the MDCC. Hilaire, Mareus, and other students had heard about the high school walkouts and other protests in the New York area in response to the acquittal of four cops who killed Amadou Diallo with 41 bullets a year ago. "Maybe we'll do the same," she said.

These students had traveled all night, taking the nine-hour bus ride from Miami. More than 50 buses came from Miami, the majority organized by AFSCME, the Teamsters, Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, and other trade unions. The International Longshoremen's Association organized three buses from Miami alone. Dozens of buses were chartered by the NAACP and churches in the Black community in Homestead, Opa Locka, and elsewhere in Dade County. About 20 buses came from Jacksonville and 18 from Orlando. Thousands more came with vans or drove their cars from throughout Florida, including many small towns in rural areas.  
 

Workers take the day off

In many instances, large numbers of workers took a day or two off from work to come to Tallahassee, making their absence felt. Nearly 600, or 35 percent, of the some 1,700 drivers of public school buses in Miami called off the job to join the march, for example. The 240 substitute drivers that school authorities were able to mobilize were not enough to fill the gap. School officials were surprised by the large number of drivers who used personal days off to go to Tallahassee. Thousands of students were late for classes on March 7 as a result. These drivers are organized by AFSCME. Absences were also a lot higher than usual among school bus drivers in Broward County, north of Miami.

Those arriving by buses organized by labor unions had a hearty breakfast paid for by the AFL-CIO in a huge parking lot of a dance club. Florida AFL-CIO president Marilyn Linard announced that about 5,000 union members came to the action. The largest contingent was 2,000 AFSCME members. Other unions represented included the American Federation of Teachers, United Auto Workers, United Steelworkers of America, United Food and Commercial Workers, American Postal Union, Service Employees International Union, and International Association of Machinists. The NAACP also distributed breakfast to more than 5,000 people.

As the march set off a little before noon, the atmosphere was festive and combative. Protesters sang and swayed as they marched up the hill on Apalachee Parkway toward the state capitol, sometimes seeking shelter under the old oak trees lining the highway to avoid the hot afternoon sun. "No more Bush," and "Affirmative action is here to stay!" many chanted.

In numerous interviews, industrial workers, teachers, small businessmen, and others, reiterated that they were not willing to give up affirmative action or other similar gains working people made in bloody battles since the late 1950s and 1960s. A good number of the participants were veterans of those earlier battles.

Rosa Peoples pointed to the fact that the March 7 demonstration fell exactly 35 years to the day of the "Bloody Sunday" march in Selma, Alabama. That's when state police launched a vicious assault on civil rights demonstrators, marking one of the historic battles that resulted in the overthrow of Jim Crow segregation in the South. Peoples said affirmative action was won as a result of those struggles. Later, in 1976, she and a dozen other state employees sued the state of Florida to win a measure of equality in hiring and promotions in state agencies, and scored a victory, "even though the judge never released the monetary settlement we were awarded," she said.  
 

'Gratifying to see young people here'

Other workers described what it was like on the job before and after affirmative action was won. David Cromartie, Jr., a retired paperworker was among those who came with one bus, three vans, and several carloads from Panama City, Florida. He proudly displayed his lifetime membership card in the United Paperworkers International Union. He said that after working for United Paper for more than 30 years he and all his fellow workers who were Black had never been promoted beyond laborer jobs.

"Then in 1967, in Nashville, Mississippi, the union negotiated a memorandum of understanding that guaranteed equal opportunity for Black workers in promotions," Cromartie said. "After that, I became a wood chipper feeder, an evaporator operator, washer control room operator--all 14 classifications an hourly worker could qualify for and still remain in the union." Not long after those victories, Cromartie continued, "things somehow got weaker. Young people saw no reason to fight, it seemed. It's gratifying to see so many young people here today."

A number of protesters were emphatic about answering the claim by Governor Bush and other opponents of affirmative action that the racist discrimination of three decades ago is no longer a reality and that affirmative action programs today are simply "reverse discrimination."

We've experienced "400 years of slavery and myriad forms of oppression, while affirmative action has been in place just since the end of the '60s," stated Manny Whyshoe. "And they tell us we have achieved equality in 30 years? Why is the poverty rate, and the infant mortality rate, and the median household income for Black families and other oppressed people getting worse and not better today?"

Others pointed out that the assault on affirmative action is part of the drive by the wealthy classes to justify their exploitation and to attempt to roll back workers' resistance and undermine growing unity among working people of all nationalities. "Affirmative action was meant to unite, no matter what the color of our skin," said Eddie McReed, a member of the International Association of Longshoremen (ILA) who works at the Port of Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale. "We see how much unity has meant for us in our strike," he pointed out, referring to the recent walkouts by dockworkers and truck drivers at ports along the East Coast. "Unity among our ranks and solidarity from others made it possible for us to force many boats [companies] to operate with union labor."

McReed said that the ILA is still picketing three companies at the Port of Everglades that are nonunion. "Before the strike we had more than 20 boats that were loading and unloading nonunion. Now it's down to three and we are still fighting." Large contingents of ILA members from Miami and Jacksonville, along with Ft. Lauderdale, were visible and loud during the march.

The overwhelming majority of the protesters came from Florida. A couple of busloads came from Atlanta, organized by the NAACP, and one bus came from South Carolina. A few carloads of unionists also came from Alabama.

Stefanie Seguin, president of the University of Florida chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) in Gainsville, said that the fight to defeat One Florida is supported by most female students at her school. Several other NOW campus chapters organized contingents for the March 7 action.  
 

Discussion on how to move forward

Protesters held a variety of views on how to defend affirmative action. Conner Ravares, a student from Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, said that quotas are needed to enforce affirmative action in hiring and education.

Most politicians and others who addressed the rally outside the state capital did not share that opinion. The president of the Florida NAACP said Bush wrongly accuses opponents of One Florida of wanting "racial quotas."

Featured speakers at the rally that culminated the march included Kweisi Mfume, president of the NAACP; Hugh Price, president of the National Urban League; Martin Luther King III, chairman of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; NOW president Patricia Ireland; comedian Dick Gregory; Gerald McEntee, president of AFSCME, who spoke on behalf of the AFL-CIO national leadership; and Democratic Party politician Jesse Jackson.

The theme of most of their remarks was to place all the blame for the attacks on affirmative action and other social programs on Governor Bush and the Republican party and to get out the vote for the Democratic Party in the November presidential elections. "Can you imagine," said U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown of Jacksonville, "what it would be like on Nov. 8 to wake up and open the paper and see that George W. is president of the United States? That is my worst nightmare. We got to go to the polls and vote those Bushes out!"

During his address to the state legislature, Bush evoked loud applause from Republican senators when he said that "the vast majority of Floridians favor elimination of all affirmative action programs." This comment gave the lie to Bush's claim that his executive order was intended to be a kinder and gentler version of the misnamed "Florida Civil Rights Initiative."

This is a referendum proposition that California businessman Ward Connerly and his local backers have announced they intend to place on the Florida ballot in the November elections. The day before the Tallahassee march, Connerly's supporters appeared before the state Supreme Court to get approval for the wording of their proposition, which would wipe out all state affirmative action programs. Connerly has spearheaded similar measures that won majority votes on state ballots in California and Washington.

"What we must keep in mind, is that Bush, Connerly, and their ilk may win some votes or ram down our throats some executive orders," said Eugene, a longshoreman from Jacksonville who asked that only his first name be used. "But affirmative action is not a Black issue, or a woman's issue. It's a worker issue. And we are the majority."

Rachele Fruit is a member of the International Association of Machinists in Miami.  
 
 
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