Shit got shut down in Oakland on April 14!  The day began with a speak-out at Oscar Grant Corner in the heart of downtown and ended with a major disruption of traffic on a key Bay Area freeway.

The crowd of between 150-200 was mainly youthful. At least a half dozen high schools were represented—some left their charter school to come to the protest and their principal threatened them with expulsion, even coming to the rally to try to drag them back.  Eight of them refused and told the principal, you don’t even know what our lives are like.  (These were Latino students). 

Speakers at the rally included Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of the progressive Jewish/interfaith journal Tikkun; the father of Pedie Perez, who was gunned down by police; a representative of Code Pink; the Bay Area Revolution Club; and the Stop Mass Incarceration network.

After the rally, people took over the City Council chambers for an impromptu 20-minute speakout. Then it was on to march through Laney College—a community college in downtown Oakland. From Laney, the marchers headed for the 880 freeway—a major artery in the Bay Area. First, a half dozen or so bold young revolutionaries and protesters got right out on the northbound side of the freeway and shut shit down!! While people were being chased by the highway police dozens more marchers came up the embankment and got onto the onramp or the side of the freeway.  Even after people were run off the freeway, the onramp remained closed for at least another 20 minutes, as protesters rallied along the side of the freeway, slowing down traffic.  At one point one of the pigs snatched the Stolen Lives enlargement and broke it and threw it on the ground.  People grabbed it and continued to rally holding it for people driving by to see.