On Sunday, June 12th, hours before Johannes Mehserle was set to be released from Los Angeles County Jail for having killed Oscar Grant by shooting him in the back, hundreds rallied in Oakland at Fruitvale BART station, marched downtown, and then spoke out at 14th and Broadway. While the energy was high at Fruitvale and throughout the hour and a half march, once the main crowd arrived downtown to a small waiting contingent and numbers started to drop not long after, morale sagged. Nevertheless, several poignant, insightful, and motivating short speeches were given. Included here are three videos of speakers at 14th and Broadway including Boots Riley of The Coup, who spoke about the importance of empowering people to make real radical changes in Oakland; Kristin Snelling of Save Oakland Libraries, who spoke about issues with funding priorities in Oakland; and Matt from the O100, who discusses the missed opportunity during the march for demonstrators to stand in solidarity with those arrested at 2nd Avenue and International Boulevard. The first video is of Boots Riley:

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download video: mehserlerelease-06_bootsriley_061211.mp4 (20.4MB)