(SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER)
The group of college aged-students who have kept Florida Gov. Rick Scott out of his Tallahassee office off and on for more than two weeks call themselves the “Dream Defenders.”
Their goal is to make sure the dreams of their generation are not “deferred,” quoting Langston Hughes’ famous poem entitled “Harlem (Dream Deferred).” That’s according to Curtis Hierro, the group’s field secretary.
Hierro spoke exclusively to the Florida Courier Tuesday as they were concluding their 15th day of occupation.
On this day, they were visited and motivated by the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Last week, another longtime civil rights activist, entertainer Harry Belafonte, traveled to Tallahassee to offer support.
‘A new generation’
“We are here to no longer defer the dream. These issues are real to our generation. This is our movement, though we welcome icons of the past,” concluded Hierro, who is a recent graduate of the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
“We are a movement of a new generation. We can’t rely on other people to do it for us. We are an organized youth resistance. The onus is on us to organize and bring people here.”
