Feature Archives

Yvette Falarca of BAMN helped prevent the neo-Nazi rally on the steps of the capitol in Sacramento this summer — and was one of several people who were stabbed by the fascists. Following the action, threats were made against the school at which she teaches if she was not fired. The Berkeley Unified School District caved and suspended her. On November 1, Yvette announced victory in that she has been reinstated as a teacher at Martin Luther King Middle School, although there are still outstanding issues, including the district's refusal to restore back pay.

On October 15, about 40 people, including students from UC Santa Cruz, San Francisco State University, and Watsonville High School, as well as community members from Santa Cruz and Watsonville, came out to the Driscoll's Distribution Center and Berry Store in Aromas, California, to relay the message that the boycott of Driscoll's continues until Driscoll's negotiates a union contract with the farmworkers in San Quintín, Mexico who harvest the lucrative berries. Currently, farmworkers receive as little as $6 a day for 12-15 hours of work, with no benefits or job security.

It was 1966 when Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Initially, their goals were to make use of California's open-carry laws at the time to directly challenge police brutality in Oakland and to turn Black rebellion into political power. In little time, the party expanded nationwide, fed hundreds of thousands of children, and created free health clinics and a number of other social programs. October 2016 marked the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party.

Word got out that the Oakland Police Department had intentions to do neighborhood outreach in West Oakland on October 18. Knowing that OPD holds public relations events such as these to whitewash their earned reputation as racist, violent, and corrupt, the Anti Police-Terror Project set out to prevent OPD from exploiting local residents for a propagandistic photo op. As an unexpected bonus, a man's home was saved from being confiscated by the police.

Since August 26, when San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began to sit and then kneel during the playing of the national anthem to protest racist police violence, at least dozens of more Black people have been murdered by the police. What is also intensifying is that more and more athletes are taking a visible stand against police brutality. Students at the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) have been particularly vocal about their opposition to a lack of police accountability and the unfair treatment of Black and Brown people at the hands of law enforcement.

Daniel Borgström writes: It was Saturday, September 24th.... The solidarity rally was to be held in downtown Oakland, at the triangular-shaped plaza where Telegraph Avenue splits off from Broadway. It was 7:30 p.m. when I arrived; Gerald Sanders was speaking to a gathering of a couple hundred people. Almost everybody there was quite young. A banner read: "Revolt with Charlotte." Several dozen police were taking up strategic positions along Broadway and Telegraph.

Nathan Damigo is a Social Studies major at CSU Stanislaus — and he’s been building up a white supremacist group called Identity Evropa (IE) across Northern California. Identity Evropa focuses on recruitment by plastering college campuses with propaganda that promotes the creation of an all-white, fascist, authoritarian political power. On October 4, anti-fascists put up 300 posters at CSU Stanislaus detailing Damigo’s hidden past as a convicted felon in a violent hate crime, as well as his involvement in a string of hate groups before attempting to rebrand himself with Identity Evropa.