This fall, workers, families, clergy, and citizens from throughout the United States will have the opportunity to participate in a historic mobilization for social justice-the Immigrant Workers' Freedom Ride. The goal of the ride is to pull together thousands of people from across the country to defend immigrants from opportunistic politicians, and to reclaim the historic moment as one for progress and equality.

Starting in late September, buses will leave from 10 cities: Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Minneapolis, Chicago, Miami and Boston. And on October 2, after traveling across the country, they will converge on Washington, DC, to lobby. Afterwards, on October 4, in New York, they will rally for equal rights and the reclaiming of the American dream. The rides have four broad policy priorities: a path to legalization and citizenship; family reunification; immigrants' rights at work; and civil rights and civil liberties for all. Along the way, buses will stop at sites dramatizing our national struggle, such as cemeteries with unmarked graves for men and women who died crossing the border; factories where management has used immigration status to divide workers; and sites where civil rights freedom riders of the 1960's were gunned down.

These freedom rides, modeled on the freedom rides of the 1960s, present us with a historical opportunity to change national policy and shift the national consensus. On the national level, these rides are the most dramatic evidence of the historic change in AFL-CIO policy on immigration, from decades of seeing immigrant workers as a threat to jobs to a modern realization that immigrant workers are the natural allies of all working Americans. It also illustrates that one's immigration status remains a powerful wedge in the hands of employers only as long as workers allow themselves to be divided.The rides are sponsored by a broad coalition which includes the AFL-CIO, the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, and the National Interfaith Committee for Interfaith Justice. We're eager for you to participate, both by getting involved in planning with us and by showing up this fall to take part in making history.

To get involved, check-out www.iwfr.org. Click on the link to routes, and contact your local representative.

Josh Eidelson, an intern with the Hotel Employees and Restaurants Employees Union Local 634, is a coordinator of the Philadelphia Immigrant Worker Freedom Rides Steering Committee. He'll begin his sophomore year at Yale University this fall. He can be reached at eidelson@yale.edu