The San Francisco Bay View newspaper has been forced to stop printing its weekly paper due to financial strain. The last printed copy went out on July 2nd, marking the 697th issue the Ratcliffs have published since starting the paper in 1992.

One of the only Black-owned radical publications in the U.S., the SF Bay View newspaper has provided a public platform of communication and solidarity between U.S., African, Latin American, and Caribbean activists and incarcerated people who are challenging imperialism throughout the world and from both sides of prison walls. On its last run, the paper was printed and delivered to thousands of homes in Bay View Hunter's Point and Oakland, dozens of locally owned businesses in the Mission District of San Francisco, and hundreds of people in prison.

The Bay View has maintained itself as an individually-funded free paper through a trickle of advertising revenue, national prisoner and resident subscriptions, and a small pool of donors, which has included the staff itself. Its printed, weekly format has been key to bridging the ‘digital divide’ in more ways than one, as many of its subscribers have no or very little access to the internet and few sources of trusted, current, community and activist-oriented news.

Read more | The end of an era, the dawn of a new day | Interview with Willie Ratliff | Aug. 9: Community Forum & Party

SF Bay View website