The bus arrived late Thursday night in McPherson Kansas and spent the night in the 4H center. Special thanks to Emil Mushrush and Valeda Larson for a preparing and coordinating a homemade meal and to the rest of the Kansas Farmers Union for their hospitality, flexibility and generosity.

Daryl Larson greeted the Freedom Riders early Friday morning before he began work that day. Daryl is the president of the Mc Pherson County Farmer's Union, which has 100 members. He spoke about some of the issues effecting farmers and recapped some of the topics discussed at the Union's meeting the night before

Most farmers farm during the day and work a second shift in the factory to make ends meet.

Most independent farmers must provide their own health insurance and pay extremely high premiums or risk going without health insurance.

Equipment and maintenance costs continue to increase yet farmers are still being paid the same amount of money for their wheat crop as they got in 1940.

Thursday the House of Representatives voted against a bill that would have provided disaster relief money to farmers who were effected by last seasons drought.

Farmers discussed the possibility of a corporate dairy farm moving into McPherson County. The farm with 3,500 cattle would create environmental and pollution concerns.

The New Freedom Bus Tour is traveling across the United States for a month bringing attention to communities struggling for Economic Human Rights.

A diverse group representing organizations of the poor from across the country is carrying the message of Economic Human Rights around the country and, on December 12th, to the United Nations in New York city

The Bus tour is gathering documention of economic human rights violations occuring in the United States to update our petition charging the US government with human rights violations against its citizens.



Nov 17 – San Francisco, CA & Oakland, CA

San Francisco

9am: Tour of South Beach Resource Center (drop in center), community dialogue on Economic Human Rights to follow

Contact: Calvin Davis, POWER www.fairwork.org

415-864-872 x350, power@unite-to-fight.org

Oakland

Women's Economic Agenda Project

Oakland Poor People's Economic Human Rights Committee

Contact: Carolyn Milligan, Women’s Economic Agenda Project,

510-451-7379 x224, cmilligan@weap.org

2:00-5:00: Healthcare is a Human Right: March and Rally around Pill Hill

7- 8:30pm: Evening program- Why Save the Soul of America

November 18 - San Jose, CA & Merced, CA

San Jose

Community Homeless Alliance Ministry- CHAM

San Jose Poor People's Economic Human Rights Committee

Coordinator: Carolyn Milligan, Women’s Economic Agenda Project,

510-451-7379 x224, cmilligan@weap.org

Contact: Sandy Perry, Community Homeless Alliance Ministry

408-295-4463, PerrySandy@aol.com

11-1pm: Housing is a Human Right: March and Rally for National Housing Trust Fund Act

Merced

Merced Poor People's Economic Human Rights Committee

4:30 arrive in Merced

Conact :Dr. Sal Sandoval

work:209-383-7441

sasandoval@aol.com

6pm evening event

November 19 – Los Angeles, CA

Evening event TBA

Contact: Cynthia Marta-Flores cmflores@usc.edu

For more information on the Freedom Bus please visit our web site at:

http://www.kwru.org