"Orangeburg has a rich history of protests and demonstrations for civil rights, for human rights," says Dr. Bill Hine, professor of political science and history at South Carolina State University.

Continuing to write that history, participants in the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride led an hour-long rally Monday in SCSU's Student Union Plaza.

The ride is a national mobilization to focus public attention on immigrant rights issues and to press for reform of what the participants insist are unjust immigration policies.

Of particular concern is the Free Trade Area of the Americas, which Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride participants say "is NAFTA all over again -- but 10 times bigger." FTAA would "affect the lives of every worker in the hemisphere," they say.

Inspired by the freedom riders of the civil rights movement, the immigrants and advocates set out on buses from nine major U.S. cities -- Boston, Chicago, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, Portland and Seattle.

Their destination is Washington, D.C., where they will meet with members of Congress on Oct. 1 and 2. Then they will continue on to New York for a mass rally on Oct. 4 before heading home.

The trip has not been without incident. According to The Associated Press, passengers of the two buses from Los Angeles were detained by the U.S. Border Patrol near El Paso, Texas, for nearly four hours Friday.

A group of "neo-Nazi protesters" met the bus from Miami at its first stop, in Immokalee, Fla., on Saturday, said David Skovholt, a trip organizer. Because of that incident and other threats, state troopers accompanied the bus across Florida and Georgia, he said.

The bus from Miami also made stops in Orlando and Jacksonville, Fla.; Savannah, Ga.; and Charleston before arriving in Orangeburg.

It brought riders hailing from 14 nations, including Argentina, Canada, Cuba, Colombia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama and the United States.

Miami bus coordinator Anna Fink translated English speakers' remarks into Spanish, and Spanish speakers' remarks into English.

"The struggle for human rights is not an easy one," Hine said. "It's not one that's won quickly, and it sometimes comes at great and tragic cost."

On Feb. 8, 1968, "a few hundred yards behind me," three people were killed and 27 injured in an event that "became known as the Orangeburg Massacre," Hine said.

The immediate result was "even more recrimination and bitterness in this community," Hine said, but "time does have a way of healing and bringing about some degree of progress."

"The struggle for rights -- for civil rights, for human rights, for the rights of all people -- does occur in communities like this, at the local level, and it does result in progress," the professor continued.

"It may not come easily. It may come over a great length of time -- decades as opposed to years -- but struggle does result in meaningful progress," he said.

"Orangeburg today is not a perfect community, but it has made progress -- progress that perhaps could not have been foreseen or even glimmered in the 1950s or 1960s," Hine said. "The Orangeburg of 1968 is not the Orangeburg of 2003."

Still, by traveling by bus and by visiting historic sites in the civil rights movement, the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride seeks to "make a link to the civil rights movement," Fink said.

"The struggle for civil rights, the struggle for human rights -- we do not make a distinction between your struggle and ours," said Edmund X. Campbell, another freedom rider.

"It's one struggle to create a society where we all can work and learn and live as full-fledged human beings," Campbell added.

Too many immigrants are considered "casual" labor and do not receive vacation, sick leave and the other benefits full-time workers usually have, Campbell said. "We're going back to slavery."

"Every single day, our rights -- our civil rights, our human rights -- are challenged," said Clayola Brown, executive president of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees.

"It is up to the very few that are willing to stand up and speak up that ensure that the rights of everyone will continue. You are the foot soldiers ..." Brown said. "An injustice to one is an injustice to all. Stand strong, ride strong, speak strong."

Alvertha Green-Glover, secretary of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, which is one of the event sponsors, introduced several dignitaries, including state Sen. Brad Hutto and Orangeburg City Council member Bernard Haire, and relayed state Sen. Gilda Cobb-Hunter's regrets at not being able to attend.

"I came to learn as much as I could from what these folks had to say about the plights they're going through," Hutto said in an interview.

"I know from talking to people in Orangeburg that employ immigrant labor that they rely on that labor; it's part of our economy now," he added.

"More and more immigrants will be coming to Orangeburg and to South Carolina to participate in our work force, and we've got to find ways to integrate them into our society ... particularly as it relates to our school system" and the health care system, Hutto continued.

While many immigrants living in the area "do have their proper paperwork" and pay taxes, "there are quite a few that don't and it's an issue that's gotten set aside because of ... the war on terror," he said.

"It's good to have people coming through our community, explaining some of their needs and some of the things they have to offer," Hutto said. "I think it's a very positive thing for South Carolina State to have hosted them."

Specifically, the SCSU chapter of Phi Alpha Delta law fraternity was one of the sponsors. The others, in addition to the previously referenced APRI and UNITE, are the Greater Columbia Central Labor Council and the South Carolina AFL-CIO.

For more information, access the website: http://www.immigrantworkersfreedomride.com

T&D Staff Writer Lee Hendren can be reached by e-mail at lhendren@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5552.

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