Black Lives Matter at Work

FERGUSON
21
“Come on out, we got yo’ back!”
JT Taylor, United Students Against Sweatshops, Local 86
April 15 was a stormy and windy day in Tennessee. We planned to start
our day at 6 a.m., and the rain was falling before 4 a.m. When I made it
down to the McDonalds on “The Strip,” Cumberland Avenue in Knoxville,
I saw dedication and resilience. Their faces were gritting against the
slanted rains. I saw USAS posters in my comrades’ hands and I saw
solidarity with Show Me 15 as their hands linked around umbrellas. Show
Me 15 was the catalyst that USAS’s local chapter, the Progressive Student
Alliance, needed. Since 1999, we have been campaigning and working
with our non-majority campus union, United Campus Workers, on living
wages for the University of Tennessee–Knoxville. For years, USAS had
been calling out UTK for being a sweatshop. For years, USAS had been
calling out UTK for exploiting women and folks of color.
We took the intersecting issues of economic and racial injustice from UTK
to Ferguson. When we got to St. Louis, the skies were clear. Everything
felt right. When we met the other groups on the streets, we ran to one
another. We hugged, we screamed, we danced, and we immediately
knew that we were in the right place. We were with the right people, we
were with family. We kicked it up a notch, and we headed to Ferguson on
yellow buses. When we made it West Florissant Ave. in Ferguson, we met
even more people. There were around 400 folks, and nearly half the
crowd rushed in to support the workers in McDonalds. “Come on out, we
got yo’ back!” we chanted. We rallied, we took back our streets, we
drove police away with our collective bodies and voices. April 15 was a
day for the people.