Freedom Caravans, Sanctuary Caravans: Sacred Resistance of Central American Refugees on the Overground Railroad, 1984–88

On March 24, 1982, the nascent Sanctuary Movement went public with its message of civil disobedience. Up until then, only a few key leaders clandestinely moved Guatemalan and Salvadoran refugees across churches and safehouses. But, movement founders in Tucson, Arizona, reasoned that they needed strategic elements of the movement to prevent government officials from raiding churches and safe houses in the dead of night and largely evade public scrutiny. The March 24 declaration is perhaps the best-known part of the decade-long struggle which pitted the faith leaders against the Reagan administration.

Two years later, when sanctuary workers began to face government prosecution, movement organizers doubled down on their sacred resistance by launching “sanctuary caravans.” These caravans transported a small number of refugees along an “overground railroad” to offer powerful and moving testimonios to congregations and audiences all across the country. As government prosecution increased, so, too, did the presence of these caravans. This paper draws from extensive archival research to show how, between 1984 and 1988, no fewer than a dozen caravans journeyed up and down the US to platform refugee struggles and raise awareness of the US intervention in Central America and its devastating impact. By describing the case of the “Sanctuary Freedom Train” which transported Raul and Valeria Gonzalez (pseudonyms), and their two children, to sanctuary in Detroit's St. Rita Catholic Church in the summer of 1984, this paper outlines the struggles of Central American refugees in becoming bona fide leaders of the movement. This paper’s portrayal of sanctuary leaders playing active public roles, thus challenges the representation of White Protestant dominance of movement leadership. Moreover, refugees in these widely-publicized caravans also fundamentally pose a challenge to our understanding of public religion in the 1980s, a decade dominated in popular imagination by the rise of the Religious Right.