Hi everyone! My name Sadie Thomas and I am from Surf City, NC. I graduated in May 2024 with a degree in Neuroscience from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In August of 2025, shortly after I cross the finish line in San Diego I will begin PA school at Methodist University. If I am honest with everyone, there is no singular reason or specific moment that made me decide to ride; Pedal the Pacific just found me at the right place and right time, but I will try to explain what got me here.
My good friend, Jordan Pilcher, introduced me to Pedal the Pacific when she rode the summer of 2023. Jordan and I have similar belief systems and our conversations always feel significant and purposeful, so I knew Pedal had to be the same. I could tell that the ride changed the way Jordan interacted with the world and it was inspiring to see her grow more into herself and an advocate. Although, at this point, I had no idea what direction my life was going and how Pedal would ever fit into it. Fast forward almost two years, I can now see my why very clearly.
As a woman, I know what vulnerability feels like. I have seen and experienced the heaviness of moving through the world as a woman from an extremely young age. The older I become, the more I have realized how my privileged upbringing, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status has been a safeguard to victimization and exploitation. In my last semester of college, I took a Women and Gender Studies class with Dr. Tanya Shields called “Rahtid Rebel Women: An Introduction to the Caribbean” for a required general elective. During this class, I engaged with materials concerning historical and current socioeconomic oppression of people in the Caribbean, with a specific focus on women’s experiences. One documentary that stuck out to me was Fireburn, which discusses the St. Croix labor riot of 1878 that resulted in sugar cane fields being burnt down by a group of women. Even though all slaves were “emancipated” in 1848 on the island of St. Croix, the conditions 30 years later had not changed much. As discussed in the documentary, indentured servitude and contract labor technically provided people with wages, but emancipation came with increased responsibilities, like paying for rent and food. The wages provided from indentured servitude or contract labor could not support someone to live. Therefore, people were still living in enslaved conditions and they were entwined and, in some cases, indebted to the plantation system. Rightfully, there was anger towards the sugar industrial complex that continued to entrap freed people of St. Croix. This anger is what prompted the women to resist their oppressors, fight against the sugar cane industrial system, and burn down the sugar cane fields in 1878. Dr. Chenzira Davis Kahina describes the women’s emotions as “anger with a just cause”.
"I was primed with the information learned from Dr. Shields’s course and it became clear to me that human trafficking is modern day slavery."
After I completed this course and graduated, I was hungry to learn more about untaught and unseen histories. I found myself doing a deep dive on the resources page of Pedal’s website. I could not stop thinking about human trafficking and wondering how I did not know the full extent of the issue until now. I was primed with the information learned from Dr. Shields’s course and it became clear to me that human trafficking is modern day slavery. In the United States, we pride ourselves on being the land of the free; yet many trafficked individuals only have a mirage of freedom, like those of St. Croix in 1878. In the case of human trafficking, there is no one field to burn or industry to change. Unfortunately, human trafficking is a pervasive, systemic issue that will require a ceaseless battle to enact change and ensure freedom for everyone. There is work to be done in every facet of society, but together with shared anger for a just cause, I believe in a world that is truly free.
