This is your chance to spend a few hours this weekend supporting local movements in support of equality for all people with #96Hours Direct Action Weekend organized with support from the Anti Police Terror Project.
Events
Friday @ 4pm: Interfaith processional in remembrance of Black Lives
Oakland City Hall
Saturday @ 6pm: Say their names
Oakland International Airport
Sunday @ 4:30pm: San Francisco March for Tech Diversity and EquityLocation TBD
Monday @ 11am: Second Annual March to Reclaim King's Radical Legacy
Oscar Grant Plaza
#96Hours event page
Description
“This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism” -Martin Luther King, Jr.
Over the last year, in the Bay Area alone, there have been dozens of police murders. In San Francisco, we have most recently seen the brutal execution of Mario Woods, in addition to police beating a disabled man in front of the Twitter building and racist text messages exchanged between SFPD on-duty officers.
In Oakland, we have seen 8 Black men murdered by police since only June of 2015. In fact, a recent graphic by Mapping Police Violence shows that in 2015, Oakland ranks third in police killings per million people in 60 of America's largest cities. (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206329825138680&set=a.1214863845917.33741.1058446890&type=3&theater)
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.
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:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1541563859495909/
RSVP and Invite your friends!
Check out the web site for more about APTP's vision: http://www.antipoliceterrorproject.org/new-events/
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