Feature Archives

On June 26, hundreds of anti-fascists gathered on the grounds of the state Capitol, ready to deny access to white supremacists who had announced plans to hold a rally that afternoon. Members of the Traditionalist Workers Party had secured a permit from the California Highway Patrol to rally on the steps of the Capitol building along with other anti-immigrant and racist groups. Antifa forces made certain the rally never happened, despite suffering serious casualties while repelling the Nazis.

On the morning of May 19, Jessica Williams — a twenty-nine-year-old Black woman who might have been pregnant — was shot and killed by San Francisco police in the Bayview District. She was unarmed. Within a few hours of the killing, Mayor Ed Lee, announced that he was firing Suhr. Community pressure had been building to fire Suhr in response to his record as Chief. Later in the day, protesters rallied at City Hall before a large vigil was held at the site of her murder. On Friday, May 27, a rally and march will be held for Jessica Williams.

Protests against Donald Trump are heating up in California as the June 7 presidential primary approaches. On April 29, it was the Bay Area's turn. Trump was scheduled to speak on the opening day of the California Republican Convention in Burlingame. Protesters blocked streets and pushed through police barricades. Trump's motorcade was unable to reach the site and was forced to walk from Highway 101 through concrete barriers to reach the convention via a back entrance.

On Saturday, January 23, hundreds of local activists met the anti-choice Walk for Life at Market and Powell Streets, shouting down their repressive message with loud, spirited, no-holds-barred pro-choice chants. The religious-based walk busses in thousands of anti-choice activists annually on the anniversary of Roe v Wade in an attempt to drown out locals in the pro-choice city of San Francisco.

On Black Friday 2014, following the grand jury announcement it would not recommend indicting police officer Darren Wilson for the murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, fourteen Black activists chained themselves together on a BART transit platform “to prevent trains from moving at the West Oakland station, in response to the seemingly unending war against Black communities.” District Attorney Nancy O'Malley and BART pursued criminal charges and originally $70,000 in restitution. Now, after a year-long campaign by the Black Friday 14 and a broad coalition of allies, the DA has dropped all the charges.

The ACLU of Northern California and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office have reached a settlement agreement that will ensure that women are able to choose whether they receive pregnancy testing in the county’s jails. The agreement is the result of a lawsuit, Harman v. Ahern, which argued the policy was a violation of the California Constitution, the U.S. Constitution and state statutory law.

In a show of solidarity, labor unions and Black Lives Matter activists staged a protest on November 10 which targeted Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley. Some two hundred protesters gathered outside D.A. O'Malley's offices demanding that she “Drop the charges against the Black Friday 14!” They declared that the struggles for economic justice and racial justice were two sides of the same struggle. Inside the courthouse, a delegation of labor leaders occupied O'Malley's office. No arrests were made.