Statement in Support of the Houston Janitors
and the Use of Civil Disobedience
At many junctures in our nation’s history, people of good will have courageously and nonviolently refused to cooperate with injustice by engaging in nonviolent protest and civil disobedience—including the Boston Tea Party, Harriet Tubman's Underground Railroad, and the fight for women to gain the right to vote.
In 1961, civil rights activists engaged in Freedom Rides to the Deep South. These caravans of African Americans and whites traveled far and wide to protest Jim Crow segregation. Inspired by the Freedom Riders, janitors from across the country are flying to Houston to fight injustice by engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience.
Their cause is just. Houston janitors work hard mopping, dusting, scrubbing, and polishing thousands of offices each and every day. For their efforts, they are paid $20 a day and receive no health insurance. Most of them live in poverty.
The goal of these “Freedom Flyers” is to promote workers’ rights, civil liberties, and the opportunity to achieve the American Dream. We applaud the bravery and courage of these janitors, who will be risking arrest to fight for a better future for all American workers. Victory by the Houston janitors will build momentum for a new movement for better jobs and affordable health care in Houston and throughout the southern United States.
Signed,
U.S. Representative John Lewis
Reverend James Lawson, Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Congressional Hispanic Caucus
U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee
U.S. Representative Al Green
Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis
Texas State House Representative Garnet Coleman
Houston City Council Member Ada Edwards
Houston NAACP
Black Leadership Forum
Immigrant Legal Resource Center
Reverend James Orange
Reverend William Lawson
Mr. Charles Steele, Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Richard C. Shaw, Secretary-Treasurer, Harris County AFL-CIO Council