Caravan demands a ‘People’s Bail-Out’ in Georgia

There was an air of excitement and anticipation as dozens of people decorated a flatbed truck and assorted other vehicles in preparation for the “demonstration on wheels” which would take about 200 people from across Georgia to the gold-domed state Capitol.

It was Feb. 12 and the “People’s Bail-Out Plan: The Change We Want To See” protest was about to hit the streets of downtown Atlanta with a reggae band on board the truck, scores of youth and adults waving signs and amplified chants echoing off the tall buildings. The caravan drew enthusiastic honks from passing motorists, waves from construction and hotel workers, smiles and cheers from students and picture taking from international tourists as it traveled from a homeless shelter, passing by exclusive hotels and the Georgia State University campus before stopping in front of the Capitol building.

Photo: Jonathan Springston, Atlanta Progressive News

Sandra Robertson, director of Georgia Citizens Coalition on Hunger, the initiating organization of the 29th annual Poor People’s Day at the Capitol, stated that some 393,168 Georgians were out of work; 112,000 had jobs that paid below the federal minimum wage; and 116,225 homes had been foreclosed on in 2008.

Denouncing the Georgia law that sets a maximum of four years in a lifetime for receiving Temporary Assistance to Needy Families funds, she declared that unemployment and poverty don’t have four-year maximums.

The seven points of the People’s Bail-Out Plan were the result of several months of discussion by activists and community organizers from Rome and Augusta to Macon and Soperton, all Georgia cities. They include an immediate moratorium on foreclosures, a raise in the Georgia minimum wage, single-payer universal health care, tax reform, no privatization of public services such as education, and the elimination of the time limits for TANF.

The rally concluded with a People’s Telephone Jam with the participants using their cell phones to call the legislators’ offices to simultaneously demand passage of the People’s Bail-Out Plan.