Invocation by LeRoy Chatfield
California State Democratic Convention
April 25, 2009

The theme of our invocation this morning is justice . . . labor justice.

We pause a moment to think about the families of the 2 ½ million farmworkers and the 1 ½ million domestic workers in our nation who labor all their lives in involuntary servitude.

All because they happened to have been black OR brown and of farmworker or domestic status in 1935 when their labor rights were bargained away for the sake of other workers who were to be granted the protections of the National Labor Relations Act.

And now, 74 years later, because of their exclusion, these workers still labor at poverty jobs.

We are left with no other choice but to characterize this neglect as government-sanctioned racial and economic discrimination rooted in the slavery and segregation of our nation’s history.

As Jerry Cohen, former general counsel to Cesar Chavez and his United Farm Workers, and architect of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act, wrote in his letter to Hilda Solis on March 8, 2009, “Any just national labor law reform must include farmworkers and domestic workers. If not now, when?”

LET US PRAY

Heavenly Father,

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth . . .

As we reflect about our nation’s injustice visited upon farmworkers and domestic workers, what are we to think? what are we to say? what are we to do?

Who will emancipate farmworkers and domestic workers from their involuntary servitude?

Should we expect justice to come as the result of this convention and the thousands of dedicated and motivated delegates assembled here, or should we look elsewhere?

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth . . .

Grant us hope, strengthen our resolve, help us to generate the political will to right this grave injustice.

Grant us the patience to deal kindly with our colleagues when they tell us “not now” or “not yet” and grant us the courage and persistence to withstand those who say “no” and bitterly oppose any national protection for farmworkers and domestic workers.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth . . .

Grant us the confidence and the vision shown by your martyred servant, Martin Luther King, Jr., when he taught “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth . . .

AMEN. (Obamanos)