Barstow is a city about 100 miles from Los Angeles where truckers often converge since it’s a major crossroads.
The large convoy goes by the name “The People’s Convoy” and will be non-partisan and cross-cultural in nature.
At the start of the convoy, an estimated 500 to 1,000 trucks will gather and depart eastward for Kingman, Arizona. The next morning, they will depart from that location and head east on Interstate 40 toward Lupton, Arizona. On Feb. 25, they plan to arrive at Glenrio, Texas.
The exact locations have not yet been specified due to the need to maintain operational security and to leave time to coordinate with local municipalities.
More details on the routes will be released two or three days in advance “as safety dictates, but you can expect us to travel along I-40 and work our way up towards D.C.,” Brian Brase, one of the core truckers that are organizing The People’s Convoy, told The Epoch Times.
Brase has been involved with various protests against over-regulation in the trucking industry for five years already.
Multiple groups will be joining the convoy as they drive toward the capital.
“It might be truckers that started it—standing up. But this is ‘The People’s Convoy’ for a reason. This is for every American, no matter where you come from or your personal background,” Brase said. “This is for every person to be a part of. This is not a left issue or a right issue. This is an American issue. And this convoy is for everyone. Moms in soccer vans, to motorcycles, to buses full of hippies, it [doesn’t] matter. This is for everyone that believes in their personal freedoms as a human being, and as an American, their personal freedoms that are protected by the Constitution of the United States.”
Some of their plans are still being held “pretty close to the chest,” but the organizers will be issuing updates as the event takes shape.
Another goal of the movement is to hold officials accountable for the actions they took in the name of public health during the pandemic. Brase explained they would like to see “congressional hearings, as to several things: why the actions were taken that were taken, what science did they use to [back up] their actions.”
Brase said they are calling for “Senate hearings and things like judicial hearings through the Senate and the House, to get to the bottom of the source of the COVID-19 pandemic, how it started, where it started exactly, and who’s responsible for the steps of [the] mandates and shutting down people that have scientific facts that contradict what the CDC or the World Health Organization has said.”
The truckers have security protocols still under development, as well as a code of conduct for participants, which will be uploaded to their website in the upcoming days. They also have contingency plans in the event that they are blocked along the way.
Brase believes that there are already troublemakers trying to infiltrate the convoy.
“The bottom line here is we’re not doing anything illegal. We’re standing up for our rights. We are Americans and we have the right to assemble. And we’re doing a march. It’s no different than any of the peaceful marches that have happened over the generations of the United States’s history,” Brase said.
“We’ve been doing everything that we can to promote a peaceful environment. We’re not out to overthrow the government or change election results ... We’re not that. We’re here simply to be respected as Americans that want our Constitution of the United States respected, that’s what we want.”
“If we can stop [the emergency powers], they have to fight to get that act back in place, and at that point, everybody will be prepared to stand up and fight that act coming back into place.”
Human rights attorney Leigh Dundas is working as a clearinghouse for information in order to effectuate the goals of the convoy in a “100 percent peaceful, law-abiding,” and “successful” way.
Dundas told The Epoch Times that the goal of the protest is to handle the situation at “the root level.”
“The message is really that the abuse of emergency powers that we’ve seen multiple states and the feds engaged in over the last almost two years has to stop. The state of emergency needs to end, there is no emergency anymore,” Dundas said.
“Because to just end a mandate here and a mandate there, we’re just playing whack a mole and we’re not getting to the root cause of the problem, which is the emergency powers that were triggered back in March of 2020. So those need to come to an end and we need to return to a state of normalcy. We need to restore freedom and accountability for any actors that were not behaving well at the governmental level.”
She said they’re not expecting police blockades along the way.
“We’re going through mainly red states,” Dundas said.
“We’re not expecting these states to blockade us because it would create a bit of a traffic jam for the state and we’re expecting to work with local and state jurisdictions to ensure the seamless flow of traffic as we proceed through the U.S.”
The convoy was inspired by the Freedom Convoy 2022 that began in Canada after the country’s Public Health Agency announced that only fully vaccinated truck drivers can cross the U.S.–Canada border starting Jan. 15, and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced similar requirements starting Jan. 22 for non-U.S. national truckers crossing into the United States.
