Modern-Day Slavery Museum with representatives from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers

~Explore Connections Between Past and Present, and Offer Solutions to Human Rights Crisis in the Fields~

After a three-week tour of historic landmarks, places of worship, and community centers in the Northeast, the final stop for the Florida Modern-Day Slavery Museum will be the corporate headquarters of Compass Group North America August 16, in Charlotte NC.

Organized by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), the final stop was chosen as Compass Group is one of the CIW’s strongest supporters.

The museum was conceived by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the human rights award-winning farmworker organization that has aided in the prosecution by the Department of Justice of seven farm slavery operations and the liberation of well over 1,000 workers since 1997. A federal indictment for the most recent forced labor case in Florida agriculture was unsealed just last week.
Slavery in Florida agriculture today is not separate from the past – indeed, its roots extend deep within our state’s history. Farmworkers have always been, and remain today, the state’s poorest, least powerful workers,” explains Gerardo Reyes of the CIW. “If we are to abolish slavery once and for all in Florida agriculture, we must pull it up by the roots by addressing farmworker poverty and powerlessness.”