National Alliance of Domestic Workers Formed at Social Forum

First, a caution: You might read many articles describing wildly different events at the U.S. Social Forum. They could all be true. It was that big.

Organizers estimate nearly 10,000 people passed through the June 27–July 1 event in Atlanta. Walking through the crowds, you could hear voices from the Deep South, gravelly New York accents, California slang and Appalachian twangs and Spanish—not to mention other languages my untaught ears couldn’t identify. Participants brought with them their experiences organizing within a wide range of human rights issues working within the many ground zeroes created by corporate globalization.

They talked about being displaced by Hurricane Katrina and by the gentrification running amok in cities around the country. They described being forced to leave their home countries because they couldn’t make a living and about not being able to make a living because the work left their hometowns. They talked about the violence they survived as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people and as women, immigrants and indigenous peoples, people of color, workers and poor people and any combination of these.