WASHINGTON — Organizers of a march for immigrant rights in Washington this Sunday are reaching out to African-Americans, hoping to bring the two communities together around an issue that has been a wedge between them.
The campaign includes ads for the march on urban radio stations along the East Coast, asking for listeners to lend their support.
“Everyone has been hurt by the economy, especially African-Americans and immigrants. The truth is, together you can demand real change,” the ads state.
The effort is part of a broader strategy among Latino, black and Asian civil rights groups to unite on areas of common interest and to get Congress and the Obama administration to enact major legislation on jobs and immigration — even while the nation’s political leaders are focused on health care.
“It is a reflection of a much deeper connection between African-American constituencies and immigrant constituencies,” said Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change, which is helping to plan the march. “In the last year, there’s been a ton of work done on the ground where immigrants and African-Americans have worked together on a range of issues — from the jobs crisis to the foreclosure crisis.”
The coalition-building approach is a shift for immigrant-rights groups, who held similar marches in 2006 and 2007. Then, disparate Latino groups spurred a large protest movement to push for citizenship for the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants, relying little on organizations outside the community.
The idea of a racial coalition aims to push an overhaul of immigration law as an “American issue, not just an immigrant issue,” said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. “Up until at least two years ago, the discussion was really being had amongst ourselves.”
Cabrera said members of his group spent October and November going to Sunday services at black churches across Los Angeles, sharing the stories of illegal immigrants, and they’ve begun sending their news releases to African-American newspapers and radio shows in California.
