Marvin Bing, a member of the AFL-CIO Special Committee on Labor-Community Partnerships, sends us this report.

Tens of thousands of labor and civil rights activists on Saturday marched from the New York offices of Koch Industries, whose owners have supported restrictive voting legislation modeled by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a right-wing think tank funded by brothers David and Charles Koch. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), who took part in the event, put it this way:

You can’t accomplish anything if you’re not prepared to fight.

In a dramatic way not seen in years, today’s celebration of International Human Rights Day arrives during enormous and popular ongoing struggles.

Voting rights are human rights. To bring that point home, a coalition of labor, civil rights and community organizations will celebrate Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day, with a Stand for Freedom march and rally, beginning at the Manhattan headquarters of Koch Industries, and ending at the United Nations’ Dag Hammarskjold Plaza.

Brenda Loya in AFL-CIO Media Affairs sends us this from North Carolina, where she is on a fact-finding trip to witness the brutal conditions endured by tobacco workers.

We joined a diverse delegation of 25 activists, students, labor and community leaders and traveled to farm labor camps in Dudley, N.C.., to witness firsthand the appalling and abusive conditions of tobacco farm workers.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, civil activist Shirley Sherrod and Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese will be honored tonight with the Hubert H. Humphrey Civil and Human Rights award by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (LCCR).