Feature Archives

May Day actions this year were organized with urgency in solidarity with the Palestinian people, heeding the call from the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions to stand with Gaza. Workers and peoples around the world called for an immediate ceasefire. Marches and rallies filled the streets across Northern California on May 1, and there was no business as usual at the Port of Oakland as officials closed the port in anticipation of planned protests.

After years of prayers and protests, the struggle to protect the West Berkeley Shellmound Sacred Site has prevailed. On March 12, the Berkeley City Council approved a global settlement with the owners of the Shellmound village site and adopted an ordinance giving title of the land to the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust. The deal results in what Ohlone tribal leaders describe as one of the most significant urban land back victories in United States history.

Even as a case awaits a California Supreme Court decision regarding student housing UC Berkeley intends to build on the land, the university went in for the kill on People's Park shortly before midnight on January 3, sending in hundreds of police to clear the park and to make way for a wall of shipping containers. Protesters were ready for the raid, but police closed nearby streets to prevent more from coming to defend the park. Several demonstrators were arrested.

Protesters in Northern California have engaged in direct actions aimed at disrupting business as usual and raising the profile of the call to free Palestine. Activists shut down the Bay Bridge. A US military vessel destined to deliver weaponry to Israel was blocked from leaving the Port of Oakland. A defense contractor's office was locked down. Communiqués posted on Indybay claim sabotage of train lines, as well as a water main at a pro-IDF fundraiser.

The city of San Pablo plans on building a new police headquarters and training facility. The Stop Cop Campus Coalition intends to prevent the new facility from being constructed, arguing such huge amounts of money would be better spent meeting the needs of city residents rather than policing them. On September 30, their second protest was held with a march down the middle of San Pablo Avenue to the site of the proposed "Cop Campus."

As the Port of Oakland views ever increasing use of autos and aviation as integral to humanity's evolution in the Bay Area, others beg to differ. Environmentalists from the Stop OAK Expansion Coalition view fossil fuels as the main cause of, now undeniable, global warming and current climate crises. They demand we move away from autos and air travel to fuel efficient systems such as electric rail. They are protesting and speaking out at public meetings.

Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst-turned-peace activist who revealed that the U.S. government had been lying about its war on Vietnam, died on June 16. He was best known for leaking the Pentagon Papers to news outlets in 1971. He became a vocal anti-war campaigner. In a 2019 interview, Ellsberg said, "an act of truth-telling, of exposing the realities about which the public had been misled, can indeed help end an unnecessary, deadly conflict."