Calendar
Reclaiming King’s Legacy
“Equality demands dignity. And dignity demands a job and a paycheck that lasts through the week.”
“When you have mass unemployment in the Negro community it’s called a social problem. When you have mass unemployment in the white community it’s called a depression”
“We refuse to believe the bank of justice is bankrupt”
– Martin Luther King, Jr
Last year, during MLK weekend, The Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP) answered a national call by initiating #96Hours of Direct Action that culminated in an historic march from Fruitvale Station to Coliseum City on Martin Luther King Day. Over 7,000 people took to the streets and reclaimed the radical spirit of King and celebrated his legacy of resistance! Since then, APTP has steadfastly been organizing to build a replicable and sustainable model for eradicating police-terror in communities of color.
In the months following that powerful weekend, the police and the state have taken more lives than ever before and our communities are facing accelerated displacement due to rapid gentrification that is supported and encouraged by our new Mayor and City Council members.
This year our MLK day march will be even bigger.
This is a family-friendly event and a celebration of King’s legacy, Black Lives and the struggle for social justice.
Last year we marched through areas in Oakland that are currently in development or are proposing development and we made clear demands to stem the tide of gentrification, end the displacement of Black and Brown residents, replace high-rise plans with affordable housing, and implement local-hiring practices all while demanding an immediate end to police terror in our communities.
Facebook event with description here.
We are marching from Oscar Grant Plaza, 14th & Broadway, to the Bay St Mall in Emeryville.
WE DEMAND:
The resignation of Mayor Libby Schaaf
The immediate termination of Chief Sean Whent
The immediate termination of Chief Greg Suhr
The immediate termination of the officers involved in the murders of Richard Perkins, Mario Woods, Yuvette Henderson, Amilcar Lopez, Alex Nieto, Demoriah Hogg and Richard Linyard
The immediate reallocation of city budgets: reduce police budgets and reallocate those funds to provide for affordable housing that allows Black, Brown and other people of color to remain in San Francisco and Oakland.
This year, we shut it down in the names of:
Yuvette Henderson
Nate Wilks
Richard Perkins
Richard Linyard
Demoriah Hogg
Yonas Alehegne
Amilcar Lopez
Mario Woods
Alex Nieto
#mlkshutitdown
#96hours
#reclaimMLK
“This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism” -Martin Luther King, Jr.
(https://www.facebook.com/
Police are the shock troops of gentrification. Mayors give them a mandate: make this city appealing to developers by any means necessary. City Councils fund police and constantly seek to expand their numbers and their powers. As a result, people of color are being pushed out of cities at unprecedented rates, by an out of control rental market, increased police occupation and terrorism against communities of color, as well as crackdowns on those who dare protest these unjust policies.
A year ago, people across the country began taking to the streets in unprecedented numbers; storming shopping centers, blocking streets and highways, interrupting cultural events and public transit. And the people SHUT IT DOWN. We SHUT IT DOWN because there is a state-sponsored war on Black, Brown, and other marginalized peoples in the United States. WE SHUT DOWN BUSINESS-AS-USUAL because business-as-usual is an out-of-control epidemic of police terror.
Last year, in partnership with comrades and allies, APTP launched 96 Hours of Direct Action in the Bay Area, and answered a national call to Reclaim King’s Radical Legacy which we did through a march that brought over 7,000 people into the streets of Oakland. We believe it is important for our movement to draw on King’s legacy to ground ourselves, to reinforce our conviction and confidence in the tactics and strategy of disruptive direct action.
A year later, while we are starting to have an impact, we also see that we have a long long way to go. So this Martin Luther King Day weekend, Oakland’s Anti Police-Terror Project* is calling on you to help us SHUT IT DOWN – again. Together, we will unleash the vast creativity and organizing capacity of our communities to produce a spectrum of disruptive and creative activity. In the spirit of MLK, we want these to actions to meaningfully interrupt business as usual whether that be with direct action, teach-ins, concerts or prayer vigils and to do so with action logic that links our resistance to fighting racism, economic injustice, and imperialism. We want you to plan these actions independently, but together we will coordinate collective support for these actions through a spokescouncil so that they have maximal support and impact.
Please visit the 96 Hours facebook event page: Updates, meeting agendas, calendar, and other info will be posted:
https://www.facebook.com/
Also see the Second Annual March to Reclaim King’s Radical Legacy event page:
https://www.facebook.com/
Invite your friends!
Check out the web site for more about APTP’s vision: http://
The weekend will once again culminate in a King Day march that embodies the true spirit of King’s resistance to capitalism, imperialism and racism.
WE DEMAND:
- The resignation of Mayor Libby Schaaf
- The immediate termination of Chief Sean Whent
- The immediate termination of Chief Greg Suhr
- The immediate termination of the officers involved in the murders of Richard Perkins, Mario Woods, Yuvette Henderson, Amilcar Lopez, Alex Nieto, Demoriah Hogg and Richard Linyard
- The immediate reallocation of city budgets: reduce police budgets and reallocate those funds to provide for affordable housing that allows Black, Brown and other people of color to remain in San Francisco and Oakland
Spokescouncil Meetings are scheduled to take place:
January 5th @ 7pm at the OMNI
January 9th @ 7 pm @ the OMNI
January 12th @ 7pm (San Francisco Location TBD)
January 14th @ 7pm (Location TBD)
Reminder this is a call out for affinity groups to organize autonomous solidarity actions in line with APTP’s Principles.
This year, we shut it down in the names of:
Yuvette Henderson
Nate Wilks
Richard Perkins
Richard Linyard
Demoriah Hogg
Yonas Alehegne
Amilcar Lopez
Mario Woods
Alex Nieto
#mlkshutitdown
#96hours
#reclaimMLK
Questions, ideas, comments, or to get involved…
Email aptpspokescouncil@gmail.co
Thank you for coming out to the movie showing and flyering party last week to UNwelcome Sprouts to Oakland. Join Occupy The Farm, Boycott Sprouts, and our Bay Area friends and allies again this week to let them know “no business as usual until you pull out of paving over the Gill Tract farm.”
Help us to let all the new shoppers know that Sprouts Farmers Market is planning to pave over the Gill Tract farm, where the local community has been proposing a community center for regenerative agriculture, education, and ecological demonstration; and where the Gill Tract Community Farm currently farms on an acre and a half of the total 20 acre tract that the development land is a part of.
We’ll have banners and leaflets to pass out. Join us as you can for any of the listed time. There will be a coordinator on site!
Tues 1/19 1-9pm
Wed 1/20 2-5:30pm
Thurs 1/21 tbd**
Fri 1/22 tbd**
Tuesday, Jan 19 with 6 pm potluck (list ingredients!); CSAI Accountability Forum 2 at 7 PM. This is the follow-up to our October 30, 2015 Forum at which the gathering called for the Berkeley City Council to address nine specific points. This time we will address “who” enters the Police Academy in the first place, and how to improve the Police Review Commission. That subject will be on the City Council agenda the following week at Berkeley City Hall on Tuesday, Jan. 26th.
The Oscar Grant Committee and the family of Pedie Perez will hold a Press Conference and Speak Out to Stop the Pedie Perez Killing Cover-Up! We will then attend the regular meeting of the Richmond City Council and. speak during the Public Comment period.
After sixteen months of secrecy and hypocrisy, the family of Richard “Pedie” Perez III is still seeking truth and justice in the killing of their son by Richmond Police Officer Wallace Jensen in the early morning hours of September 14, 2014. The police falsely claimed that Pedie attacked Officer Jensen and tried to take his gun. The surveillance video and eyewitnesses tell a different story, and the facts are widely known among the media and the public. Yet Police Chief Chris Magnus, Contra Costa County District Attorney Mark Peterson, City Attorney Bruce Goodmiller, and Mayor Tom Butts are all conspiring to prevent an independent investigation by the Richmond Police Commission.
These public officials have discredited their offices, just as Officer Jensen discredited the Richmond Police Department. We deserve better from our police and elected officials. We reject the Cover-Up and call for Openness and Transparency with an Independent Investigation and an Independent Prosecutor!
“I just want flat out justice . . . If the facts are that the cop did what I think he did, well, we don’t need cops like that.” – Rick Perez, Pedie’s father
Thank you for coming out to the movie showing and flyering party last week to UNwelcome Sprouts to Oakland. Join Occupy The Farm, Boycott Sprouts, and our Bay Area friends and allies again this week to let them know “no business as usual until you pull out of paving over the Gill Tract farm.”
Help us to let all the new shoppers know that Sprouts Farmers Market is planning to pave over the Gill Tract farm, where the local community has been proposing a community center for regenerative agriculture, education, and ecological demonstration; and where the Gill Tract Community Farm currently farms on an acre and a half of the total 20 acre tract that the development land is a part of.
We’ll have banners and leaflets to pass out. Join us as you can for any of the listed time. There will be a coordinator on site!
Tues 1/19 1-9pm
Wed 1/20 2-5:30pm
Thurs 1/21 tbd**
Fri 1/22 tbd**
San Francisco’s police union has called on its members to show up at Wednesday’s police commission in force to support the officers who were involved in the December shooting death of Mario Woods.
A letter was sent to all active Police Officers Association members Jan. 16 asking for a strong showing Wednesday night to ensure the commission remains impartial despite attacks on law enforcement from some politicians and others.
“I am writing to all active POA members to request a show of support by officers at the next police commission meeting. We are asking our members to show support for our brothers and sisters involved in the recent officer involved shootings in the Bayview district,” wrote union President Martin Halloran in his plea. “Our profession is under attack nationally, and especially here in San Francisco”
The union’s request comes as protesters and activists have been calling for Mayor Ed Lee to fire Police Chief Greg Suhr and for the prosecution of the five officers who were involved in the killing of Woods last month.
Suhr has specifically come under fire for his previous handling of a racist text scandal last year and more recently for comments he made after the Woods killing that some say sounded as if he thought the shooting was justified.
Meanwhile, the union’s president has taken a strong position on the Woods killing, saying in the January issue of the union’s monthly journal that preliminary information released by the department indicates that “these officers were forced into an impossible situation with an armed suspect who allegedly stabbed an innocent victim less than a half hour earlier. These officers exhausted all forms of less lethal force and were forced, by the suspect, to discharge their firearms”
We disagree.
Chicago Confessional, documentary by Bryan Gibel
Inmate Stanley Wrice was subject to a police torture squad that operated in Chicago in the 1970s and 1980s. The injustices were led by Jon Burge, Chicago Police Department detective and commander who gained notoriety for torturing more than 200 criminal suspects between 1972 and 1991 in order to force confessions. Stanley Wrice seeks to overturn his conviction for a horrible crime he insists he didn’t commit.
as always, free snacks and popcorn
Justice 4 Mario Woods
The Rules Committee — made up of Sups. Avalos, Tang, and Cohen — is having a special meeting on Thursday and the first item on the agenda is addressing alternatives to use of force in policing.
http://www.sfbos.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=54804
1. 151263 [Hearing – Alternatives to Use of Force in Policing]
Sponsors: Cohen; Yee, Avalos, Breed and Campos
Hearing on alternatives to the use of force in policing, and re-evaluating San Francisco
Police Department General Orders 2.07, 5.01, and 5.02; and requesting the Police
Department to report.
California Common Cause is committed to reforming our democracy. We believe that democracy should work for all of us and it does that better when the voices of everyday Americans are being heard by our government.
The documentary Dream On puts a spotlight on those voices – from fast-food workers to single mothers, from undocumented immigrants to community organizers, and from inmates to retirees. Their dreams, their hopes, and their struggles.
Join us on Thursday, January 21, for a free screening of the documentary!
This poignant new documentary features political comedian John Fugelsang as he retraces the journey of Alexis de Tocqueville, whose study of our young country in 1831 came to define America as a place where anyone could climb the ladder of opportunity.
You can watch the trailer to the film here.
Kurdish Film Series in #Oakland coming up in solidarity w #Rojava first one Dec 20th 5:30pm @ 1501 Harrison St pic.twitter.com/u2CnfVpbFC
— Occupy Oakland (@OccupyOakland) December 17, 2015
The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, in collaboration with Tenants Together, is engaging in a year-long project in Oakland, Fremont, and Alameda to center the stories of collectives facing rapid displacement in the Bay Area. Through oral history, data analysis, and data visualization, this project supports artists, activists, and community members organizing to survive and thrive in the East Bay. Join us to learn more and get involved!
Our kickoff event is this Thursday the 21st from 7-9pm at the The Octopus Literary Salon in downtown Oakland. From 7-8, we will be talking about what our work entails and hearing from community-based groups that are involved in all three cities. From 8-9, there will be live music by Banda Sin Nombre and opportunities to plug into different components of the project, from data viz to storytelling work. This project is receiving support from the Creative Work Fund, who will be attending the event as well. There will be food and drink available! We’ll also have some of our zines for sale!
For far too long, our political leaders have failed to represent Oakland’s true values. It is time for the Oakland Left to unite, recruit our own candidates and build political power to achieve meaningful change.
At our last meeting we discussed:
1) A possible ballot initiative as an organizing strategy,
2) The process for selecting candidates,
3) Developing a progressive campaign platform
4) Which races to focus on.
Oakland Alliance seeks to unite the progressive movement in Oakland behind a slate of candidates who will challenge the institutional power structure that has failed to represent the interests of the people over the powerful. Come and connect with dozens of organizations interested in building long-term political power and holding our elected officials accountable to the needs of their constituents.
There will be coffee and snacks provided.
Can we end police terror under capitalism? Can police structure be dismantled? What about community defense guards? How can we organize in the movement against police terror to be more effective, and to involve more people? Looking to history: Robert F. Williams, Deacons for Defense, and the Black Panther Party.
Meet John Parker, West Coast leader of Workers World Party, member of the National Committee of Workers World and its presidential candidate in 2004. He organizes in Los Angeles to build a unified movement against police terror, war, against racism and homophobia, for worker and immigrant rights. He witnessed and investigated U.S. war crimes against the people of Iraq, Syria, Haiti and Sudan, and in the U.S. against the people of Ferguson, Baltimore and Los Angeles.
wheelchair accesible * light refreshments provided
Spaghetti Dinner & Program for Social Justice Action!
You are invited to attend this year’s annual Spaghetti Dinner and Program at the Unitarian Universalist Center in San Francisco. This year’s event will focus on environmental justice and feature climate activist Tim DeChristopher, founder of the Climate Disobedience Center, who will speak on “Where We Stand on Climate Justice.” Three outstanding local activists will be honored and the event will include poetry, music and inspiring presentations.
6:00 pm: No-host bar, Delicious Spaghetti Dinner, Caesar Salad, Dessert, Poetry and Music
7:00 pm: Keynote Speaker: TIM DeCHRISTOPHER, climate activist, founder of the Climate Disobedience Center (AKA “Bidder 70” of the acclaimed documentary, who outbid oil and gas companies for drilling rights on public lands in Utah)
JANET WEIL, CodePink, Mistress of Ceremonies
SHAHID BUTTAR, EFF, MC and DJ
LOCAL ACTIVISTS to be honored who work for economic justice, the rights of the people and the rights of the earthWheelchair accessible
Fundraiser benefits educational projects of the UUSJC
Report Back From the Rojava Revolution
Paul Simons, writing under the pen name, El Errante, is the author of a series of recent dispatches from the liberated territories of Kurdistan in Syria. Currently on a tour across the Bay Area, Simons has just returned from a region besieged by war yet is also in the middle of one of the most far reaching social experiments of the 21st Century: the ‘Rojava Revolution.’ The liberated territories of Kurdistan are a thriving example of stateless democracy and of a people who are overturning traditional institutions such as patriarchy and social hierarchies.
Simons discusses not only the day to day life of the people living within the evolving revolution, but also the various grassroots organizations and militias that they have created while waging an exhausting fight against both ISIS and the Turkish State. Weaving together ideals of anti-authoritarianism, feminism, ecology, and a rejection of Statism, Paul Simons’ report on the the Rojava Revolution is not to be missed by anyone working for sweeping social transformation in the current age.
Seating is limited, so plan to come early. We start promptly.
FREE – but hat will be passed for donations to NPML
About Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library
A weekly discussion series inspired by our respect for the work of Karl Marx and our belief that his work will remain as important for the class struggles of the future as they have been for the past.
For our full schedule, go to icssmarx.org