You know that old saying, “third times a charm…” Well, this will be the 3rd time that all of you have come out to show your immense support of the Land Action 4 and this huge, grass-roots, housing rights movement.

On MAY 20th, at 9am in DEPT 10 of the RENE C DAVIDSON COURTHOUSE The Land Action 4 have been promised a full half-day of the court’s time and an entire courtroom to ourselves!!! This is really huge!! Our legal defense team, with Tony Serra leading the charge, will present our Motion to Dismiss all charges.

Having the entire courtroom to ourselves can be an immense boon, and we want to make sure that WE PACK THE COURTROOM!!! That means that we really need every single one of you to be there. Each of you will have an extremely meaningful presence at this critical legal cross-roads, as this court case stands to set strong legal precedence around the use of adverse possession laws as a means to shelter. We need to show the court, the judge and rest of Oakland that our momentum won’t be dragged down by the court’s stalling tactics.

Twice now the Land Action 4 have stood before the discerning eye of a judge with a huge show of community support, twice now the powers that be have told us that they didn’t have time to listen to our plight. And finally, we have been promised by those powers that be that we will be heard!!! But, promises from “on high” only get us so far….

Some have said that our Motion reads like a HOUSING RIGHTS MANIFESTO and no doubt Tony Serra will orate it as such with fire and passion!!

So, please join The Land Action 4, our legal defense team and this powerful community of people who care about the basic human right of all folx to have shelter on MAY 20TH, at 9AM in DEPT 10 of the RENE C DAVIDSON COURTHOUSE.

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In case you are just tuning into this Bay Area Housing Crisis Drama…
Here is the full back story as told by defendants Patrick Xu and Wren Hyde

The interview begins at minute 35:54
https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=227703

On April 8th during the show Living Room, defendant Steven Dicaprio and attorneys Walter Riley and Dan Siegel talked about the Land Action 4 case specifically and address the political and economic side of the current Housing Crisis.

Interview begins at minute 30:17
https://kpfa.org/episode/living-room-april-8-2016/

*********

AND…. If you have the monies, we are $495 away from reaching our goal of paying back Patrick’s bail money that he had to borrow!!! AND if we can raise even more than our goal the money will go towards the court fees that we are steadily accruing.

Donate to support the Land Action 4’s legal expenses:
http://www.gofundme.com/m3vz8wva

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Also in news and the press:

Long-form radio show with Steven Dicaprio and Wren Hyde fielding questions from the radio interviewer and taking questions from listeners calling in.
http4s://kpfa.org/player/?audio=22868

KTVU TV segment:
http://www.ktvu.com/news/114969085-video

East Bay Express:
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2016/03/17/oakland-housing-rights-activists-face-85-years-in-prison

Join us for the 30 minute film BREAKING DOWN THE BOX followed by an update on California solitary confinement by Laura Magnani of AFSC’s Healing Justice program. Jennifer Kim, Esq. Director of Programs for the Ella Baker Center will discuss the legislation on confinement and isolation for youth. Before and after, step into the mock solitary confinement booth to experience the dimensions of the solitary world. Learn how you can help.

Childcare available with 48 hour advance notice. This is a FRAGRANCE FREE event. For more information or to request childcare, contact Lauren Poole at lpoole53@gmail.com.

Click the button at this link and let us know when you can go get some signatures. We are approaching the end of our time to submit our initiative, and we need to get as many signatures as possible to make sure it qualifies! 

Collecting signatures all week.  Here is Saturday’s schedule:

5/21/2016, Saturday
Lucky’s                                         12-3p                 Sign-up!
3-6p                 Sign-up!
Safeway South Shore               12-3p                 Sign-up!
                                                        3-6p                 Sign-up!
Alameda Landing                      12-3p                 Sign-up!
                                                        3-6p                 Sign-up!
Nob Hill                                        12-3p                 Sign-up!
                                                        3-6p                 Sign-up!
Apartment Building                   5-7p                 Sign-up!
Ferry Building                        4:30-6:30p           Sign-up!

Join this 5th annual global day of action to show solidarity together across the earth between the people, the creatures, and the land. Join the global march and movement and help co-create a better world for us and the generations to come!

Come dressed like your favorite creature in need of representation against the Big Agro-Chemical Industry
E.g. Bees, Salmon, Butterflies, Bats, Frogs, etc!
Bring the whole family!

We will meet at NOON at the wooden platform at Embarcadero and North Point in San Francisco, California.

Lets make some noise singing, dancing and swarming with a message to Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Dow AgroChem, Bayer and all the traitors to the earth and the rights of nature; that we believe in a SUSTAINABLE FUTURE; and that as collective citizen-stewards of the earth we are not allowing this destruction to persist, we are trasforming our future now! We will come and share space with one another, building and uniting the many projects we entertain that can, are, and will bring about meaningful change! The movement for food sovereignty and ecological sustainability is growing!

BAN ROUND UP (GLYPHOSATE) IN SF!
ORGANIC NON-GMO FOOD IN OUR SCHOOLS!
PROTECT OUR FOOD SUPPLY!
BIODIVERSITY AND AGROECOLOGY!
INDIGENOUS LAND RIGHTS!

HELP SPREAD THE WORD!

http://www.facebook.com/events/395847877245485/

May 14, May 21, May 28, June 4, June 11, June 18, June 25, 1-5pm

Using news photographs, memorabilia, reconstructed objects, documentary fragments, and original documents, contemporary artist Kate Haug re-tells the story of the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last monumental social protest prior to his assassination. The exhibition features images and objects culled from Haug’s extensive research in the archives of the Associated Press, the popular press, and eBay, which have not been seen together before, bringing to life the complex ambition of King’s vision.

King began organizing the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) in 1967 to unify America’s poor across class rather than racial lines, believing that economic parity was key to African American equality within the United States. The PPC culminated with a 3,000 person shanty town named Resurrection City, constructed on the National Mall in Washington DC. Resurrection City drew people from all over the country, was the nineteen sixties version of the 1932 Bonus March and a predecessor to “Occupy”. The exhibition time frame for this show mirrors many of the actual dates of the campaign, tracing the Resurrection City’s opening day to its final destruction.

The PPC echoes aspects of current social movements such as Black Lives Matter, Fight for Fifteen, and Our Walmart. In San Francisco, a city with one the highest rates of income inequality in the United States, King’s work asks pointed questions about the contemporary social contract and the democratic promise of America.

News Today: A History of the Poor People’s Campaign in Real Time runs from April 9, 2016 to June 25, 2016.

Gallery Talks:
Sat May 14, 2pm:
Justin Gomer Ph.D., Lecturer, American Studies, UC Berkeley
A discussion of the images in News Today as they relate to the shifting political landscape in the years after 1968.

Sat May 21, 2pm:
E.C. Feiss, Ph.D. Student, Art History, UC Berkeley
The Politics of Display

Written and performed by Charlie Hinton, Directed by Mark Kenward, Music by Fred Johnson

Charlie created Solitary Man based on letters and visits with people in Pelican Bay SHU/solitary confinement. The show is set in November 2014, a year after the largest prisoner hunger strike in history. Charlie says, “I want this show to gain an audience and become one more voice calling for the end of mass incarceration and solitary confinement.”

After the performance, we will have an update and discuss how and why the men in Pelican Bay SHU have been continuously deprived of sleep since Aug 2, 2015.

Antwon Cloird, Chief Operations Officer of the Richmond-based pre-release program Men and Women of Purpose, will join our panel discussion to talk about the work of his organization that is focused on addressing social and economic barriers to reduce recidivism through opportunities for rehabilitation.

STOP SLEEP DEPRIVATION TORTURE
No more torture in our name!

One day – Seven Hours – 145 Writers – 70 Events

Inside City Hall, more than 100 novelists, poets, historians, philosophers, journalists, and activists will engage event-goers in panels, interviews, and open debate. This year’s Festival will feature (among many others) Dave Eggers, Mary Roach, Frank Chin, Elaine Brown, Fred Moten, Ellen Pao, Emily Raboteau, Victor LaValle, Larissa MacFarquhar, Pico Iyer, Arlie Hochschild, and Greil Marcus. Join us for conversations about labor movements, immigration, drug trafficking, altruism, censorship, prisons, restorative justice, labors of love, the dignity of work, and the future of the family. A full list of activities and speakers can be found at oaklandbookfestival.org.

Children’s Area – Music – Booksellers – Food

The outdoor portion of the festival, on Frank Ogawa Plaza, includes a dedicated children’s area with performances from Children’s Fairyland, “favorite-stories” read by librarians from the Oakland Public Library, and book-making projects courtesy of the Museum of Children’s Arts. There will be live music and readings on the amphitheater all day. Booksellers, magazine publishers, and local literary organizations will have booths on the plaza; food trucks will provide nourishment.

Oakland Book Festival

Free and open to the public
Read. Debate. Celebrate.

One day – Seven Hours – 90 Writers – 40 Events

Oakland Post Salon on Police Commission Ballot Initiative: the Oakland City Council could put the measure directly onto the ballot – but some members have used procedural delays to block our efforts. Come out to the Post Salon this Sunday to continue the discussion and learn how you can get involved.

For the past few months, 68 grassroots organization in Haiti have joined together and have taken to the streets in massive numbers. They have stopped fraudulent presidential and legislative elections from taking place and have forced President Michel Martelly out of office. The teach-in will give us the latest information about where this struggle stands, how the United States is subverting democracy, and how we can show our solidarity.

This is the main event of “Black Love Beyond Borders: A Week of International Solidarity”, May 21-28, 2016. For more information about the other events, go to:

https://www.facebook.com/events/488625644659946/

Organizational Sponsors: Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Haiti Action Committee, Black Lives Matter Bay Area Chapter, All African People’s Revolutionary Party, Priority Africa Network, EastSide Arts Alliance and Malcolm X Grassroots Movement

Sing for an hour on Solano Avenue at the old Oaks Theater, Berkeley.

May 23rd will be the 2 year anniversary of James “Nate” Greer’s death at the hands of Hayward rogue police.

His grieving Family will be holding a rally with their attorneys, and have a candle light vigil immediately following.

Other coalitions, families and activists will be there to support.
as well as memorialize the loss of their loved ones, who were killed by police.

For more info on the beating death of Nate Greer, please see :
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1760883287473600/

AR-15 assault rifles and other military equipment have no place in Emeryville, let alone in the hands of the police department that claims to protect and serve this community.

On Monday, Chief Tejada will be meeting with our comrades at Residents United for a Livable Emeryville (R.U.L.E.) in an attempt to divide and conquer community organizations working together on this issue. APTP and SURJ will be outside holding a rally to oppose this tactic.

An Emeryville police officer used an AR-15 in the killing of beloved community member Yuvette Henderson near Home Depot in February 2015. That preventable incident alone should signal to Chief Tejada that our police do not need military weapons, but she hasn’t moved to discontinue their use.

Come out with your signs, banners and voices to let Chief Tejada know that we will not stand for the use of this weaponry in Emeryville.

Please join us for a student-led initiative to examine closely the need to address police violence and racism as public health issues directly affecting the safety of communities in the US and particularly here in San Francisco.

The committee will decide to either send the proposed ordinance to the full City Council to vote on putting it on the November, 2016 ballot (polls show that it would pass by more than 80%) or kill it altogether.

With this much at stake, count on the real estate industry to be there in force with sharpened knives unsheathed. We need to be there to make sure our proposal moves forward.

Agenda Item with Link to Proposed Ballot Initiative.

Come and demand that the City Council put this initiative on the ballot for November.

Protect Oakland Renters Act Ballot Measure
Report and Recommendation
Subject: Protect Oakland Renters Act Ballot Measure

From: Members Of The Public

Recommendation: Receive An Informational Report And Give Staff Direction On Next Steps About A Proposed Ordinance (The “Protect Oakland Renters Act”) That Would Establish The Composition And Functions Of The Rent Board; Establish Rent Adjustments For Certain Units; And Establish Procedures For Governance Of Rental Units In The City Of Oakland