Feature Archives

On Tuesday May 26th, the California Supreme Court's ruled in favor of Proposition 8 banning future same-sex marriages but upholding existing same-sex marriages. Street actions to protest discrimination are taking place throughout the day in California and elsewhere in the nation. In San Francisco, police arrested more than 150 protesters for blocking an intersection near City Hall shortly after the ruling was announced.

On May 19, activists in the San Francisco Bay Area and Fresno marked a Global Day of Action for death row inmate Troy Davis with rallies, vigils and public information sessions. Davis has been on Georgia's death row for more than 18 years despite a strong case of innocence. He lost his most recent appeal and his execution date is expected to be set soon.

On May 1st, International Workers Day, rallies and marches were held in the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Cruz County, and the Central Valley. Demonstrators called for action in defense of jobs, families, immigrants, and unions.

On April 19, injured workers in Southern California joined together in front of the Downey Kaiser medical center to speak out about workers killed and injured at the site which was formerly a military industrial nuclear facility. On April 28th in San Francisco, Workers Day Memorial events included a press conference at the Pfizer Research Facility and a speak-out at the ILWU Local 34 Hall.

Earth Day 2009 was cause for celebration with festivals in Sunnyvale and Santa Cruz, but also cause for concern. While elementary school students in the East Bay cleaned up pollution along the Albany waterfront, university students at Stanford addressed the problem of access to water in Africa. More than 60 students carried water in buckets across Stanford's campus to bring attention to the fact that daily clean water access is not a reality for 1.1 billion people around the world.

Anti-tax "Tea Party" rallies held in San Jose and San Francisco on April 15 brought out about 500 conservative activists in each city. Although the majority of participants appeared to be white Republicans, contingents of Libertarians and members of the vigilante Minuteman organization also displayed signs. In San Jose about 50 anti-war/anti-racism demonstrators countered the right wing demonstrators. A heavy police presence utilized batons to keep the two groups apart as the two sides faced off.

The Obama administration was in San Francisco on Thursday, April 16th, to hold a day-long public hearing on Bush's offshore oil and gas proposal, which would open nearly the entire US coast to offshore drilling, including Northern California's Point Arena Basin. Protests against the drilling proposal continued throughout the day.