Building for October 22 at a San Francisco High School...

An organized core, a buzz in the air, and a fiery full school assembly

"I thought I was the only person who felt like police were there to harm not help but it completely changed my perspective."  

"On my way out of the assembly I was juiced about the protest on October 22..."

"What stood out the most to me was the pledge. The most powerful line to me was We are Mike Brown - and We Say No More."

Over the last two months, a small core of students has stepped forward to be part of the October Month of Resistance.  With the support and leadership of two teachers, they've helped spread the word about October 22 and created a new buzz on campus.

The highpoint: with less than a week til October 22, members of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network and the Bay Area Revolution Club spoke to a packed auditorium of approximately four hundred students, as seven students stood on stage with their banner: "From the Bay Area to Ferguson: We Are ALL Mike Brown - No More Stolen Lives! Stop Police Brutality!"

Unlike other assemblies, the presenters "did not sugar coat things," a student said. Far from the usual calls to "take responsibility" for their own "success", this was a call for them to take responsibility for what kind of world they are going to live in, and the resistance that will be needed to bring that about.   As the assembly was ending, the speaker from the Revolution Club put a challenge to them to get involved in the Month of Resistance. To walk out of school on October 22, to spread this on social media and to take the Pledge of Resistance.  All the students stood up and repeated the pledge, line by line, shouting in unison - "WE SAY NO MORE!".

October 1, Harlem, New York City: High School Youth Blow the Whistle

Two young comrades were out at a school and one was agitating on the bullhorn while the other was getting out whistles and one other person had the bucket for donations. Youth were rushing to get whistles—right in front of a police car stopped in front of the school. As kids streamed by to get whistles, they were blowing their whistles right at the car. The fact they were basically in front of this police car agitating and the youth were inspired to blow the whistles at the police right there contributed to a whole air of defiance. (Later they blew whistles when they saw police threatening a man in a nearby subway entrance.)

Snapshots from the East Bay:

• At one high school in Oakland, where the Revolution Club was invited in to speak at a whole school assembly about police brutality, the principal told all the teachers that they can take students out to the O22 protest. 
• A high school student in East Oakland is organizing a walkout at her school.  When she told her probation officer she was gonna go to the O22 protest they put an ankle bracelet monitor on her.  She says she's still gonna go to the protest anyway.
• "What I have done to alert HS students at my school is pass out stickers that students can put on their lockers, skateboard, buildings, etc.  I find the stickers very effective because it's there to remind them that police brutality is not over and it gives them a date when we are march in downtown Oakland.  Unlike flyers stickers tend to be permanent and more effective because they stay around longer on objects we post them."