Native Ceremony and March to Chevron's Refinery in 13th Annual Anti-Chevron Day

Photos: Leon Kunstenaar

(Richmond, May 17) - Anti-Chevron Day is a coordinated global effort to draw attention to the social and environmental impacts of fossil fuel extraction and to amplify the leadership of frontline communities advancing alternatives.

The festival opened with an indigenous opening ceremony at Keller beach. The activists festival debuted a community-built monument, The Gift of Pride and Purpose, which will be delivered to the refinery gates on a float that will also be a stage for performers.

The connection to the ancient Trojan horse myth was unmistakable. In our mind's eye, here is what happened.

Hundreds protesting the war crimes and environmental devastation wrought by Chevron went to the Richmond refinery bearing a large wooden horse.

After the rally they held in front of the locked gates, they departed but left the horse. Chevron executives in their vanity, believing the abandoned horse to be a relic of a failed movement, brought the horse inside the gates to keep as a trophy.

However that night, activists hidden inside the horse, sneaked out. They broke the locks and opened the gates to the refinery. Thousands of environmentalist then stormed the refinery and completely abolished Chevron.

Executives and major Chevron shareholders were arrested. At their trials, symbolically held in Nuremberg, many were sentenced to years of hard labor to mitigate the planetary damage Chevron had done. They were put to work wiping the refinery off the face of the earth and restoring the former forest and streams to the area.

The managerial skills of the CEO and Chairman of the Board was put to good use. He was placed in charge of properly guarding and maintaining a large memorial in memory to the many deaths of people, animals and plants killed by Chevron, that was constructed at the site.

The yearly "Anti-Chevron" protests formerly held were replaced by an annual pilgrimage to the site led by Native peoples and those determined to make real an environmental "Never Again."

In the real but temporary world, the police did not even let the march stop at either of two gates so the protest returned to Garrard Park and held the rally there. Speakers included Richmond Mayor Eduardo Martinez.

See all high resolution photos here.