BANGOR, Maine - Photojournalist Jim Harney, recently diagnosed with terminal cancer, will be spending his last days walking to bring attention to the injustice facing undocumented immigrants living in America.
“I’ m dying. I have terminal cancer,” the 68-year-old said at a press conference Tuesday at the Peace and Justice Center. “I intend to spend my last days with human beings who care about others and who are willing to live in solidarity in order to feed the rest of their family.”
Harney will start “The Longest Walk” from Boston to Washington, D.C., at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 5, during which he will give slideshow presentations and host community forums concerning immigration injustice.
Harney will lead a ceremony that Tuesday morning at the Capitol Building in Boston to honor the some 6,000 Quiche immigrants who have come to the Boston area to find work.
“These people’ s struggles need to be articulated in the thick of the intense [national] debate as [they are the ones] who make our economy work,” commented Harney. “We have to begin to make trade agreements that empower the work force and those who in a very real way, end up being the principal poverty eliminators, the undocumented.”
Harney is an Artist in Residence for Posibilidad, a Bangor-based nonprofit organization committed to showcasing the struggles of undocumented immigrants who have been displaced by globalization. “For the past 20 years, he has traveled throughout North and South America, documenting the conditions of poverty and misery in which millions of poor peasants and migrant workers live, sharing in story and photographs the dreams and hopes of a dignified life,” described a press release for the event.
Most recently, Harney has returned from a trip to the U.S. Mexico border as well as the Mexico Guatemala border where he walked with undocumented immigrants heading north to find work.
For more information about “The Longest Walk,” contact Jim’ s partner Nancy Minot at 942-3501 or e-mail them at posibilidad.org.