Groups Unite to Say Stop the Violence in Oakland; Just Say No to Cops!

WHAT: Groups Unite to Say Stop the Violence in Oakland; Just Say No to Cops!

WHEN: Tuesday, July 20th, 5pm

WHERE: Oakland City Hall, Frank Ogawa Plaza, @ 14th and Broadway

WHO: The Education Not Incarceration Coalition

BACKGROUND:

On Tuesday, July 20th, at the Oakland City Council meeting, the City will renew its declaration of a local emergency due to the AIDS epidemic and will consider major redevelopment projects. Also on the agenda is the City Council's plan to put a measure on the November ballot that calls for more money to hire more police, in the name of violence prevention.

Education Not Incarceration is mobilizing for the meeting to demand that the city commit itself to acknowledging that more police will not bring health, safety, education, and jobs to Oakland.

Instead of throwing more police at the city's problems, Education Not Incarceration demands real investment in the real community-based peacemakers, people in Oakland who have made something out of nothing and are building organizations to transform their communities. Education Not Incarceration demands that the city stop investing in a war on gangs and a Drug War that has already failed to curb the city's murder rate, and instead create real economic opportunity by creating real jobs for the people of Oakland.

Community leaders will testify on the ways in which local policing has broken up communities, demonized local youth, people of color, working-class people, and the poor, and permanently subjected them to discrimination by marking their record.

As California chooses to increase prison spending while cutting funding for UC and CSU outreach programs, and Oakland closes public schools, Education Not Incarceration says the decision on who the next generation of educators will be is being made right now, and the city needs educators who reflect the diversity of Oakland, with the language skills to communicate with students and their parents.

This rally is a step towards the Peace & Justice Community Summit organized by All of Us or None, to be held in Oakland at the First Unitarian Church on July 31st, which will put the voices of the formerly incarcerated and their families first, to address the needs of people in communities devastated by mass incarceration, and to challenge the many barriers to justice that people confront when coming out of prison.

Education Not Incarceration (ENI) is a coalition of students, teachers, parents, prison activists, and concerned community members that seeks to restore funding for education and essential social services by reducing the number of people in prison and the number of prisons throughout the state.
For more information, visit http://www.ednotinc.org
<http://www.ednotinc.org/> .